It didn’t take long after Vice President Kamala Harris announced her plans on Friday to crack down on corporate profiteering for Donald Trump to accuse her of proposing Soviet-style communism.
In an apparent reference to Harris’ admittedly vague plan to ban “exorbitant pricing” on food, the former president wrote on Truth Social: “Kamala will implement SOVIET-style price controls,” one of several policies he claimed would make inflation “100 times WORSE.”
The Republican National Committee joined in, sharing Saturday’s New York Post headline, “Camunism” on X, with the caption: “Comrade Kamala.”
It’s not clear what exactly would constitute predatory pricing under Harris’ proposed federal ban.
But Harris made clear that she agrees with those economists who have found that some firms, rather than simply raising prices in response to a spike in demand relative to existing supply, have taken advantage of market conditions to boost their profits with higher prices. And in certain industries, Harris and these economists argue, dominant firms have found ways to eliminate competition so that there is no natural course-correcting mechanism when this price-gouging occurs.
Additionally, Harris mentioned two sectors, beef and pharmaceuticals, that have come in for a lot of criticism from Republicans.
In December, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) introduced legislation that would restrict how pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), intermediaries that negotiate prescription drug prices for insurance plans, can operate. The bill, which now has the support of 10 Republicans and five Democrats, would require PBMs to charge insurance plans the same amount they reimburse pharmacies, and to pass along any discounts they negotiate with pharmacies to insurance plans.
Grassley has long been a critic of the pricing practices of PBMs and pharmaceutical companies, even going so far as to accuse some companies of predatory pricing. “As a leading advocate for drug price reduction in the U.S. Senate, I have taken Big Pharma and pharmacy benefit manager executives to Congress, led a two-year bipartisan investigation into insulin predatory pricing, and pushed bipartisan reforms to lower the cost of insulin and many other prescription drugs,” Grassley wrote in a Opinion article October 2022 in the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
He sounds a lot like Harris, who said on friday“I will lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone with your support, not just our seniors, and demand transparency from the middlemen operating between Big Pharma and the insurance companies, who use opaque practices to raise your drug prices and profit off your need for medicine.”
There are also a number of Republican lawmakers who have advocated for federal intervention to stop predatory pricing in the beef industry. Grassley joined Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in February 2023 to Meat Packaging Special Investigators Actwhich would create a new special investigator at the Department of Agriculture to investigate anti-competitive practices by meatpacking giants.
The trio argued that concentration in the meatpacking industry, now dominated by just four companies, has allowed companies to exploit independent farmers with lower purchase prices and then charge consumers ever higher prices in supermarkets.
“For years, the gap between the price paid to cattle ranchers for their high-quality American products and the price of beef in the grocery store has been widening,” Rounds said at the time. “Meanwhile, the four largest beef packers, which control 85 percent of our beef processing capacity, have enjoyed record profits. This has resulted in an average of nearly 17,000 cattle ranchers going bankrupt each year since 1980.”
Harris hinted at a similar dynamic when she lamented that the price of “ground beef has gone up 50%. Many of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in two decades. And while many grocery chains are passing on these savings, others are still not.”
“We will help the food industry become more competitive because I believe competition is the lifeblood of our economy,” she added. “More competition means lower prices for you and your families.”
Some Republicans even share Harris’ concerns about the lack of competition in the grocery industry.
Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, wrote in September to the Federal Trade Commission to promote strict oversight of a potential merger between supermarket conglomerates Kroger and Albertsons.
“The track record of grocery consolidation in our state does not bode well for Alaskans’ food security, affordability and dedicated workforce,” the two wrote.
When the FTC filed a lawsuit in February to block the merger, Murkowski said celebrated the decision. “This announcement will come as a relief to countless Alaskans,” she said. “From the potential for even higher grocery prices to long-term store closures, there were simply too many unknowns and uncertainties to allow this merger to proceed.”
