Donald Trump says Kamala Harris' new economic policy is '100 times worse', labels it 'Soviet style'

WASHINGTON, DC: Vice President Kamala Harris was accused by former president Donald Trump of promoting "Soviet style" economic policies following her announcement that she intended to impose price restrictions on groceries. 

The Harris campaign declared on Wednesday, August 14, that, if elected president, she would enact a "federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries" in an effort to prevent "big corporations" from exploiting the public.

Donald Trump hits out at Kamala Harris' economic plan 

"If you think things are expensive now, they will get 100 times WORSE if Kamala gets four years as President. Under her plan, Kamala will implement SOVIET Style Price Controls," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday, August 16. 

The former president continued, "She will abolish private health care, and make California's ridiculous tax policies the law of the land, meaning EVERY American will be taxed up to 80% of their income! If you want more CASH and less TAX, VOTE TRUMP!!!"

Kamala Harris floated the idea of price controls earlier this week

Earlier last week, Kamala Harris proposed the concept of pricing limits, stating that "there’s a big difference between fair pricing in competitive markets and excessive prices unrelated to the costs of doing business" — adding that "Americans can see that difference in their grocery bills."

Commentators and economists criticized the news widely, drawing comparisons between it and the collapse of communist economies worldwide.

A Harvard economist ripped Kamala Harris' plan to curb inflation 

A Harvard economist who served in the Obama administration criticized Kamala Harris' inflation control proposal, saying it lacked "reality." 

"This is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality," Jason Furman, the former National Economic Council chair under Obama, told The New York Times in a report published Friday. "There’s no upside here, and there is some downside."

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell criticizes Vice President Kamala Harris' proposal

Vice President Kamala Harris' suggestion to impose federal price restrictions in order to stop "price gouging" on groceries was challenged by Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell.

"It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is," Rampell wrote in an op-ed published on Thursday, August 15. "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. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk," Rampell added.

Rampell, a CNN economic analyst, likened the proposed regulations to those in the Soviet Union and other communal nations.

"We’ve seen this kind of thing tried in lots of other countries before; Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, et cetera. It leads to shortages, it leads to black markets, you know, plenty of uncertainty," she said, according to Fox News. 

"And beyond that, 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," she explained.

Internet joins Donald Trump's chorus in bashing Kamala Harris' proposal

Netizens sided with the former president as they were highly critical of Kamala Harris' new economic policy. One X user tweeted, "Soviet style policies will not work these days. Remember, the Soviet itself collapsed and one reason being the economic reforms called 'Perestroika'." Another added, "Not true. At least Soviets had an idea of what they wanted to do." 

"Kamunism is what u get when you mix a 19th-century Russian peasant with a 21st-century drag queen. Debt & a whole lot of work it gurrrl!" remarked one. Someone else wrote, "She needs to go back to college and take Economics." 

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