CNN anchor Julia Chatterley said Vice President Kamala Harris’ Friday speech on her economic policy was appealing to voters, but sparse on details.
Harris delivered remarks in North Carolina, where she discussed lowering costs for Americans on food and housing and expanding the child tax credit. Chatterley, on “CNN News Central,” said that while Harris expertly delivered the speech, her agenda is not realistic — especially her plan to impose a federal ban on so-called “price gouging.” (RELATED: Harris Once Bragged About Working ‘Behind The Scenes’ To Get Sex Change Surgeries For Trans Inmates)
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‘Voter Friendly’: CNN Anchor Says Harris’ Speech Was ‘Masterclass’ In ‘Keeping The Details Incredibly Light’ pic.twitter.com/BrFJtDYP2A
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“I think this was a masterclass in sticking to the script, keeping things very voter friendly, keeping the details incredibly light and not talking about how you have to pay for it all. If Donald Trump is sort of Harry Potter in terms of the magician for his policies, this was a bit Hermione Granger,” Chatterley said. “It wasn’t even just about not paying for it. She said she was going to reduce the deficit despite all these giveaways, as well.”
“We know prices have soared over this administration, unaffordability crisis in housing, mean house prices, the medium house prices up 20% over the past three years,” she added. “So she did a great job, I think, of changing the narrative, which has reflected so poorly on President Biden to try to make it more optimistic about what she’s going to do.”
Harris said she would pursue “bad actors” who unethically raise prices, saying when businesses don’t play “by the rules,” the government needs to “take action,” according to NBC News. She also announced her plan to address high housing costs by offering $25,000 to first-time home buyers.
“I just don’t know how that federal ban is going to work. If they’re talking about directly targeting prices, it will require some form of act of Congress. Isolating how and where price gouging is taking place is very difficult. She talked about the profits of grocery stores,” Chatterley said. “Their margins are incredibly thin. For every dollar sale, they make profits of around one to three cents. Just try proving that their price gouging is going to be incredibly difficult beyond anything else.”
The vice president has placed blame on corporations for increased prices, alleging that price gouging is responsible for inflation, The New York Times reported. However, economists assert corporate behavior has not impacted rising food costs as significantly as government stimulus efforts and low interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve.
“I can pick out a whole host of other things where the devil is going to be in the detail and it’s all going to be about the execution,” Chatterley added.
Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell said on CNN Friday that Harris’ economic plans to mitigate high prices were “totally unworkable” and would be “bad for markets,” particularly taking aim at the vice president’s price gouging plan.
“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 profit margin that bugs me,’ that seems too high,” Rampell said.
“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, plenty of uncertainty and beyond that, the specific way this bill is written might actually increase prices because of some of the other language in it,” she added. “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.”
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