CNN political commentator Catherine Rampell expressed significant skepticism regarding Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposal for a federal ban on price gouging for groceries during a recent segment with Pamela Brown.
Pamela Brown questioned Rampell about her doubts, asking, “Catherine, I hear, I read your piece, and I heard you just mention it the federal ban on price gouging for groceries. You are skeptical of this. Why?”
🚨🚨🚨 MUST WATCH 🚨🚨🚨
CNN just DESTROYED Kamala Harris’ economic agenda.
“We‘ve seen this kind of thing tried in lots of other countries before. Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union…it leads to shortages” and would “cause a lot of harm.” pic.twitter.com/pFEMYDjpN0
— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) August 16, 2024
Trump Surging to Victory – Get the Ultimate Trumpinator Bobblehead as He Closes in on 2024!
Rampell explained her concerns, stating, “Well, first of all, nobody can explain what price gouging means. It’s like that old line about pornography. I know it when I see it in the sense that, what does it mean to have an excessive price or an excessive profit margin? That seems to be shorthand for a price or a profit margin that bugs me. That seems too high. So, you know, it’s very hard to pin down what this would actually mean.”
She criticized the legislation currently under consideration, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey, noting, “The particular way that this is written, which is likely to be the template for any proposal that Harris would eventually embrace, is especially bad in that it just bans excessive prices, grossly excessive prices, grossly excessive profit margins, and says that the Federal Trade Commission can use any metric it deems appropriate to decide what that would mean, which basically says, like, it’s not going to be markets, it’s not going to be supply and demand.”
Rampell further argued, “It’s going to be some bureaucrat in DC, which seems like totally unworkable. First of all, for the FTC to be deciding like how much Kroger charges for eggs in Michigan. But it also would be very bad for markets. We’ve seen this kind of thing tried in lots of other countries before, Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, etc. It leads to shortages. It leads to black markets, you know, plenty of uncertainty.”
She also highlighted potential negative effects of the bill’s provisions, stating, “The specific way this bill is written might actually increase prices because of some of the other language in it, things like requiring companies, public companies, to disclose in their quarterly reports, the quarterly earnings reports, how they’re setting prices, which is a great way to help them collude, which normally we don’t want them to do.”
Rampell concluded, “The devil’s in the details, I guess, for that bill. But it’s really hard for me to imagine any form of legislation that preserves the spirit of what she’s proposing that would not be, you know, at best, do nothing. At worst, cause a lot of harm.”
Join the Discussion
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.