While media praise for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign may still be strong overall, some major liberal media outlets have struggled to embrace her latest economic policy proposals.
Harris announced on Wednesday that if she were president, she would impose a “federal ban on food and grocery price gouging” to stop “big corporations” from taking advantage of consumers, leading to extensive criticism of the idea from outlets including The Washington Post, CNN and Newsweek.
“It remains to be seen whether Harris’ proposals will win voter support, but if sound economic analysis remains important, they will not be without support,” the liberal-leaning Washington Post editorial board wrote Friday.
Trump slams Harris’ policies as ‘Soviet-style’ following price control proposal
This week, several media outlets slammed Vice President Kamala Harris’ price control policy proposal. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
If passed, Harris’ proposal would give the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general the power to impose tough penalties on companies that charge excessively high prices.
“There is a big difference between fair pricing in a competitive marketplace and exorbitant pricing that has no relation to the costs of doing business,” Harris’ campaign said in a statement. “Americans can see the difference when they look at the price of their groceries.”
The Washington Post editorial board harshly criticized Harris’ idea, saying it wasn’t even clear what her plan was: “Harris has said she would target companies that make ‘excessive’ profits, whatever that means,” and expressed relief that the plan had been heavily criticized from the start.
“Thankfully, Harris’ tactic drew an almost immediate skeptical response, with many critics pointing to President Richard M. Nixon’s failed price controls in the 1970s.”
A prominent Washington Post op-ed columnist this week offered an even harsher take on Harris’ price control proposal. “It’s hard to overstate how terrible this policy is. This is sweeping government price controls in all but name, not just on the food industry but on all industries,” columnist Katherine Rampell wrote Thursday.
Rampell added that this goes against free market economics. “Supply and demand will no longer dictate prices and profit levels. Far-away bureaucrats in Washington will. The FTC will be able to tell Kroger in Ohio, for example, what a fair price it can charge for milk.”
The columnist also said the policy lends credence to those who claim Harris has “communist” political leanings: “If your opponent claims you’re a ‘communist,’ maybe they shouldn’t start with an economic policy that could (accurately) be called federal price controls,” she wrote.
The next day, Rampell retracted his condemnation of the proposal after watching Harris’ speech on her economic plan. In a post on X, the columnist wrote, “Yes, there were still silly parts of her speech, but her comments on prices were toned down from the campaign fact sheet sent to reporters (which included punishing companies that price above cost). A general call for stronger antitrust enforcement is fine, and I support it.”
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Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks at the Hendrick Center for Automotive Excellence on the Scott Northern Wake Campus of Wake Tech Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina, on August 16, 2024. (Alison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images)
CNN also went after Harris’ price control plan. On her Thursday night show, CNN anchor Abby Phillips mocked the proposal, seeming to agree with National Review senior writer Noah Rothman that the plan is simply a tactic to appeal to “economically illiterate” voters.
“Is this just a ploy? Because it kind of sounds like it,” Phillips asked a CNN panel of guests that included Vanderbilt University professor Michael Eric Dyson.
Dyson dismissed the criticism by saying: “Well, fine, if you like it, it’s called good policy. If you don’t like it, it’s called pandering,” but an incredulous Philips hit back: “But is it really policy? I mean, is it ‘price gouging’?”
Dyson’s later comments suggested he didn’t even think the suggestion was realistic: “If she can do that, God have mercy on her,” he said, adding, “I mean, maybe she’d have to be the pope instead of president, but at least she could set the tone.”
By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN Economics Reporter The report was released On Friday, experts detailed how Harris’ plan to stop price gouging could create more problems than it solves.
The reporter quoted Gavin Roberts, chair of the Weber State University economics department, as saying, “When prices are rising, the best policy response is almost always to do nothing.”
Price control plans “are likely to maintain the status quo,” he said, because they would block new competition that would capture larger profit margins and potentially lead to lower prices in the long run.
She also quoted Obama administration economist Jason Furman as telling the New York Times, “This is not smart policy. I think our best hope is that this is just rhetoric that never becomes reality.”
Newsweek article Journalist Jesus Mesa also brought in economic experts to argue that the policy proposals were “riddled with problems” and “unlikely to address the root causes of rising prices and may even be counterproductive.”
“The idea that economically innocuous problems can be politically solved is a fallacy,” Mesa said, citing Scott Linthicum, vice director for general economics and trade at the Cato Institute. “There is little evidence that corporate greed or price gouging is the cause of rising food or housing prices.”
Glynn Tonsaw, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University, told Newsweek that companies aren’t necessarily raising prices, but are often just trying to address rising costs at their own companies.
“The costs of raising an animal, processing it into meat and getting that meat to the consumer are higher than they used to be,” he said.
Economic commentator warns Harris’ price control plan has already been tried in ‘Venezuela, Argentina and the Soviet Union’
The Washington Post editorial board also sharply criticized Harris’ price control plan. (Alison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images, Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
Lincicome concludes his argument by saying, “Preventing price increases is all well and good, but what will investors and farmers do if they can’t guarantee a return on their investment or cover their costs? They will cut back on investment, leading to reduced supply and further price increases or even complete shortages.”
When reached for comment, Harris’ campaign provided Fox News Digital with a statement detailing all of the support the vice president has received for her economic policy proposals: “In response to the proposals, Democratic leaders, economists and analysts have praised Harris’ plan to build the middle class and ensure hardworking Americans have the opportunity to not just survive, but get ahead.”
The paper quoted media figures like CNN host Wolf Blitzer and Democratic lawmakers like Delaware Sen. Chris Coons praising Harris’ economic plan.
“The vice president has proposed tax cuts for lower and middle class Americans and is cracking down on price gouging, while President Trump has proposed more tax cuts for the wealthy and super-wealthy and praised Elon Musk for firing striking workers,” Blitzer said during a recent episode of “CNN Newsroom.”
“She’ll be talking today about ways to bring down prescription drug prices, incentives for first-time homebuyers, efforts to combat price gouging at grocery stores — a series of concrete, middle-class tax breaks and federal actions that address the everyday economic concerns of 100 million working Americans,” Coons said during an appearance on CNN’s News Central.
Fox News Digital’s Jeffrey Clark and Christine Parks contributed to this report.
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