What Kamala Harris will say about grocery prices when she rolls out her economic agenda
Vice President Kamala Harris will call for a ban on food "price gouging," signal a critical view of mergers, and highlight her own past fights with large corporations as she sketches out her economic vision Friday.
During a speech in Raleigh, N.C., the Democratic candidate for president will attempt to blame companies for the higher cost of groceries in recent years as she tries to craft a message tailored to all-important swing state voters.
To keep food companies in line, she will propose what her campaign calls the first-ever federal ban on price gouging through new rule-making efforts.
A preview of her speech also calls out a proposed merger between Kroger (KR) and Albertsons (ACI) as an example of a combination that could create higher grocery prices.
This range of consumer-focused initiatives set to be unveiled Friday is the vice president’s first detailed foray into economic policy in the nearly four weeks since she entered the contest for president following President Joe Biden’s abrupt departure.
The Harris campaign also said other standalone proposals around prescription drug costs and housing costs will be forthcoming in the speech as Harris tries to keep recent polling momentum going in her contest with former President Donald Trump.
Harris will also speak on drug prices Thursday at an event with Biden to tout new deals to lower prices for 10 of Medicare’s most popular and costliest drugs.
On Wednesday, Trump, in his own speech, called the forthcoming Harris proposal a "fake economic plan."
He charged that it would be a copy of his and also meaningless because she has been in office for the last three and a half years, during which time she could have implemented her ideas already.
"Just remember, she goes to work every morning in the West Wing," Trump told a crowd in Asheville, N.C.
Steven Rattner — the former lead adviser to the Obama-era Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry — signaled some skepticism about Harris's emerging focus on corporate misbehavior above all else in a Yahoo Finance video interview Wednesday.
"I’m not sure myself that it’s a major factor with the inflation we have or the inflation we have left," he said, adding that "what I would like to see her propose is that we do more for middle-class families and [the] working class."
'Harsh penalties on big corporations'
The Harris speech on Friday is set to be a continuation of some of the themes she has been trying out on the campaign trail and is unlikely to include major breaks from how Biden approached economic issues.
Two weeks ago in Atlanta, as one example, Harris promised that "on day one, I will take on price gouging and bring down costs."
Harris is also set to focus Friday on the highly consolidated meatpacking market — a theme the Biden White House has returned to often in recent years by pointing out how the sector is largely controlled by four big companies and ripe for abuse.
Much of that push came in recent years from Biden’s former top economic adviser, Brian Deese.
Deese is now reportedly advising Harris during her campaign.
In her speech, the vice president will also call for new authorities for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general to enforce her ban on price swings and "investigate and impose harsh penalties on big corporations that choose to break these rules."
Other proposals from Harris, according to the Harris-Walz campaign, will include new federal dollars for enforcement actions as well as for small businesses.
Some aspects of Harris’s speech on Friday are set to be more personal to her, specifically her record in California.
As California’s attorney general, she often waded into standoffs with companies, from pharmaceutical companies to gas refiners, around issues of artificially high prices. Expect a heavy focus on those dustups in her address on Friday.
Yet to be seen is how much Harris weighs in on taxes when she speaks on Friday. Harris raised eyebrows when she recently announced support for an idea, first proposed by Trump, to eliminate taxes on tipped wages for service workers.
"That was my plan," Trump protested in his speech Wednesday.
Harris is also likely to reiterate her previous calls for expanding the child tax credit and for imposing higher taxes on corporations and the richest Americans. Those are two Biden proposals that Harris often touted as vice president.
Harris also recently weighed in to defend Federal Reserve independence after Trump argued he should have "a say" in interest rate decisions.
But in the end, much of Friday’s speech is likely to focus on these "kitchen table" issues as Harris prepares for the Democratic National Convention next week and tries to fully sketch out an economic message in the weeks ahead.
"We fight for a future where we bring down prices that are still too high and lower the cost of living for American families so that they have the chance not just to get by but to get ahead," she said recently in Philadelphia.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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