Republicans, Now Critical Of Kamala Harris, Have Targeted Price Gouging In The Past

It didn’t take long after Vice President Kamala Harris announced her plans to address corporate “price gouging” on Friday for Donald Trump to accuse her of proposing Soviet-style communism.

In an apparent reference to Harris’ admittedly vague plan to forbid “price gouging” 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 the New York Post’s Saturday headline “Kamunism” on X with the caption, “Comrade Kamala.”

It is not clear exactly what would count as price gouging under Harris’ proposed federal ban.

But Harris made clear she agrees with those economists who have found that some corporations, rather than merely raising prices in response to a spike in demand relative to existing supply, have taken advantage of market conditions to pad their profits with higher prices. And in select industries, Harris and these economists contend, dominant corporations have found ways to muscle out competition such that there is no natural course-correction mechanism when this price gouging occurs.

What’s more, Harris singled out two industries, beef and pharmaceuticals, that have attracted scrutiny from plenty of Republicans.

In December, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) introduced legislation restricting how pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), a middleman industry that negotiates 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 PBMs reimburse pharmacies, and pass along to insurance plans