In a rare display of criticism against Vice President Kamala Harris, CNN savagely rebuked the vice president over her economic agenda.
During a CNN interview on Friday, Washington Post journalist Catherine Rampell criticized Harris ‘economic plan, specifically pointing to the vice president’s advocation to issue a federal ban on “price gouging” for consumers.
In her analysis, Rampell compared Harris’ idea to radical communist policies that have failed worldwide.
While speaking on CNN, the Washington Post journalist took aim against Harris over her proposed economic policies.
“First of all, nobody can explain what price gouging means,” Rampell began.
“It’s like that old line about p*rnography. I know it when I see it,” she explained. “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.”
“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,” Rampell continued. “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.”
Rampell — a CNN analyst — then cited times in history when similar economic policies have either led to the destruction of a country or failed altogether. She specifically mentioned the Soviet Union, Venezuela and Argentina.
“We’ve seen this kind of thing in lots of other countries before,” she said. “Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, etc. It leads to shortages, it leads to black markets, you know, plenty of uncertainty.”
Rampell then argued that Harris’ economic policies could lead prices to increase instead of reducing them, specifically because of a mandate in the policy requiring companies to issue quarterly reports.
“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, their 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.
As Trending Politics reported, price gouging is the practice of dramatically increasing the prices of goods or services to an unfathomably high level, more so during an emergency crisis or when demand exceeds supply.
The outlet pointed out that such can occur with everyday items like food, water or gasoline as well as medical supplies during natural disasters, pandemics or other crises.
In her op-ed for the Washington Post, Rampell issued a scathing rebuke of Harris’ economic plan, emphasizing just how “bad” it is.
“It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is,” she wrote. “It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food.”
“Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels,” she added. “Far-off Washington bureaucrats would.”
