New York Times columnist and PBS News Hour theoretical conservative David Brooks was shocked on Friday’s show that “a responsible Democratic candidate” would endorse Soviet-like price controls on food.
Host Geoff Bennett invited Brooks to share his thoughts “On this matter of economic policy, the vice president is also proposing the first ever ban on price gouging for groceries. This is something I know you took particular issue with. It polls well with swing voters, but economists say the underlying reasons why prices are higher, it's a more complicated argument.”
Brooks cited fellow panelist Jonathan Capehart’s colleague, “Catherine Rampell, the Washington Post columnist and a News Hour contributor, said it's impossible to exaggerate how bad this policy is. And I agree with that. And Catherine had a good line: that if your opponent is calling you a communist, maybe don't lead with price controls.”
He then cited his two main problems with the proposal, “price controls just create shortages. They create black markets. We’ve seen it happen in Venezuela. We have seen it happen in the Soviet Union. Price controls just don't work. What's worse about that, first, it's trying to address a problem that does not exist. Price — grocery prices, inflation has been less than one percent for the past year. It's over. We had a surge, but it's over. The problem does not exist.”
If Brooks and Rampell are correct—and they are—then the media narrative that Kamala Harris is a moderate needs to be reconsidered. However, Brooks wasn’t ready to let that go, “But the real core problem is it expresses a level of economic illiteracy, which is, kind of, surprising in a responsible Democratic candidate.”
Brooks then proceeded to mock the idea that only when Joe Biden came into office did so-called greedflation become a problem and did accuse the administration of having “overstimulated the economy, too many dollars chasing too few goods… The Fed has to clamp down on growth, raising everybody's interest payments. That's what caused inflation. That's solid, basic economics. Her greedflation plan is somewhere off — outside of normal economics.”
Bennett then turned to Capehart and asked, “What about that, Jonathan, that the Harris policy, parts of it at least, speak to an economic illiteracy?”
Capehart tried to have it both ways, “Well, I mean, I'd take issue with the use of the word “illiteracy.” But, you know, we will just have to agree to disagree on our word choices, David.”
However, he also found that “Catherine Rampell raises a very good point. And her column, I found to be rather persuasive. And so now it's incumbent upon the vice president and her team to flesh this out a little bit — a little bit more.”
He then tried to argue that the real economic illiterate in the race is Donald Trump, “I believe it was last night, talking about a tariff on all imports? And we don't talk enough about what that tariff on all imports would mean to the American consumer. And that would mean higher prices.”
Higher prices would be bad, food shortages would be worse, and it is time PBS and the rest of the media stop hyping Harris’s “momentum” and start focusing on what she believes. If they did, maybe Brooks wouldn’t have been so surprised.
Here is a transcript for the August 16 show:
PBS News Hour
8/16/2024
7:29 PM ET
GEOFF BENNETT: And, David, on this matter of economic policy, the vice president is also proposing the first ever ban on price gouging for groceries. This is something I know you took particular issue with. It polls well with swing voters, but economists say the underlying reasons why prices are higher, it's a more complicated argument.
DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, I mean, she has some good policies in this package. I think the child tax credit is a good thing. She wants to deregulate housing, so we can get more homes.
But the price gouging is just — well, Catherine Rampell, the Washington Post columnist and a News Hour contributor, said it's impossible to exaggerate how bad this policy is. And I agree with that. And Catherine had a good line: that if your opponent is calling you a communist, maybe don't lead with price controls.
And so price controls just create shortages. They create black markets. We’ve seen it happen in Venezuela. We have seen it happen in the Soviet Union. Price controls just don't work.
What's worse about that, first, it's trying to address a problem that does not exist. Price — grocery prices, inflation has been less than one percent for the past year. It's over. We had a surge, but it's over. The problem does not exist.
But the real core problem is it expresses a level of economic illiteracy which is, kind of, surprising in a responsible Democratic candidate. The idea behind “greedflation” is that we had all these years of low inflation under Obama and under Bushes. And I guess people weren't greedy then.
And then Biden gets in, and suddenly, magically, they all get greedy and start price gouging. And they do it at Kroger's, and Harris Teeter, and at H-E-B. Suddenly, there's this mass of price gouging. And she thinks she can prosecute it.
That's not why inflation surged. Inflation surged because we had a pandemic which screwed up supply chains and productivity. Then the Biden administration overstimulated the economy, too many dollars chasing too few goods. Obama administration official Larry Summers and Jason Furman said at the time, this is going to cause inflation.
Lo and behold, it did. The Fed has to clamp down on growth, raising everybody's interest payments. That's what caused inflation. That's solid, basic economics. Her greedflation plan is somewhere off — outside of normal economics.
GEOFF BENNETT: What about that, Jonathan, that the Harris policy, parts of it at least, speak to an economic illiteracy?
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, I mean, I'd take issue with the use of the word “illiteracy.” But, you know, we will just have to agree to disagree on our word choices, David.
But Catherine Rampell raises a very good point. And her column, I found to be rather persuasive. And so now it's incumbent upon the vice president and her team to flesh this out a little bit — a little bit more.
But if we're going to talk about economic illiteracy, can we talk about Donald Trump in his proposal that he talked about at his press conference, I believe it was last night, talking about a tariff on all imports? And we don't talk enough about what that tariff on all imports would mean to the American consumer.
And that would mean higher prices. But the former president doesn't talk about that. So I think whether you're talking about the vice president's plan on price gouging and whether she'd be able to get that done, or we talk about the former president's plan for tariffs on all imports, let's have this robust conversation, which I think we will have, because the vice president still has to flesh out other pieces of her economic agenda.
