“It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is,” Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote last week.
“It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food,” explaining Democrat nominee Kamala Harris’s economic program. “Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC [Federal Trade Commission] would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.”
Rampell, certainly no conservative, concluded by suggesting to the Vice-President, “If your opponent claims you’re a ‘communist,’ maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls.”
The Post’s editorial board also noted that “every campaign makes expensive promises” but “[e]ven adjusting for the pandering standards of campaign economics” her speech “ranks as a disappointment.”
But as destructive as price controls would be, the Post’s Aaron Blake points out that, according to various polls, blaming big corporations for price gouging appears to strike a chord with the public.*
“It’s not just a potent boogeyman,” Blake explains, “it’s a potent boogeyman that deflects blame from the administration that has been in charge these past 3½ years.”
So is Vice-President Harris really a communist or just a run-of-mill blame-shifting politician?
Well, sadly, those two things are not mutually exclusive. She could be [shudder] both.
So, if you are scared that former President Trump will usher in authoritarianism, should he prevail this November, you now know that, instead, you can choose communism.
That is, the Democrats’ excuse-making, blame-shifting, market-killing standard bearer.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Though, the polling shows the public views “increasing oil production” as more effective in bringing prices down. Don’t hold your breath for Ms. Harris and Democrats to endorse that.
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