Harris to focus Raleigh speech on economic plan as she faces GOP attacks over grocery costs

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to use her speech in Raleigh Friday to propose economic policies she’d push for if elected president — including a federal ban on corporate price gouging — as she fights off attacks from Republicans over inflation.

The rising cost of goods continues to be top of mind for voters. Many of them blame President Joe Biden’s administration. Harris’ speech launching a new economic platform Friday will likely be closely watched by national economists, political insiders and others.

The speech would cap a week of presidential campaign attention in this battleground state, which Republican candidate Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2020. The former president, who regularly attacks Biden and Harris for higher prices of goods, was in Asheville on Wednesday talking about his own economic platform.

The economy is the most important issue to most voters, recent polling shows. And Harris plans to focus on something in her comfort zone.

Price gouging complaints have long been the domain of state attorneys general, a role Harris held in California before her ascent in national politics. Bringing it to the federal level would allow broader, more nationally focused enforcement — an idea likely to be embraced by consumer protection advocates but which could face stiff opposition from business interests.

Harris is expected to focus Friday on the need to crack down on the meat industry, which she blames on people’s rising grocery bills.

“Meat prices have accounted for a large part of Americans’ higher grocery bills, even as meat processing companies registered record-breaking profits following the pandemic,” Harris’ campaign wrote in previewing some of what she’s expected to address Friday.

Harris plans to appeal directly to North Carolina’s suburban voters, an influential demographic in statewide elections.

Her campaign says she will call for restoring the child tax credit that once offered up to $3,600 per child for middle class families, as well as a new tax credit of up to $6,000 for families with a child under 1-year-old. She’ll also call for tax cuts of up to $1,500 for people working lower-wage jobs, and talk about a plan to cut costs for people signing up for health insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act.

Meat a top NC export

North Carolina is the biggest poultry and egg producer in the U.S., and it ranks second nationally in farming pigs, turkeys and trout. Meat processing plants also dot the state, in addition to the 45,000 farms where owners often contract with big corporations to raise food on their behalf.

Federal data shows North Carolina chicken farms sold $4.8 billion worth of poultry and eggs in 2019 — a figure that had nearly doubled three years later, to $8.8 billion in 2022. Pork receipts statewide similarly rose from $2.2 billion to $3.1 billion between 2019 and 2022.

In eyeing the industry for its rising prices, Harris has an ally in North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor this year.

Last year Stein had North Carolina join the Biden administration and a bipartisan coalition of six states, including California and Texas, in suing the company Agri Stats, alleging its technology helps meat companies collude to keep prices high, rather than engaging in free-market competition with one another that could lead to lower prices.

“With people struggling to afford their groceries, it’s unacceptable that Agri Stats would inflate the price of chicken, pork, and turkey through its alleged anticompetitive and unlawful acts,” Stein wrote in a news release at the time. The company, which has been named in other similar lawsuits in recent years, has denied wrongdoing and has called the allegations baseless.

Stein also recently brought North Carolina into a group of 31 states banding together to fight what his office called “anticompetitive practices in the agriculture industry that raise prices and limit choices for customers and producers.”

Harris’ plan will suggest that such efforts shouldn’t need to depend on individual states, and that the federal government should take a greater role in looking into allegations of collusion, price-gouging, price-fixing and unfair mergers in various industries, including agriculture.

“These actions stand in stark contrast to Trump’s economic agenda, which would increase inflation and costs for middle-class families,” her campaign wrote in a news release. “His plans to slap hidden tariffs on goods coming into the United States would raise the prices of household goods, including groceries, and cost the average American family $2,500 a year.”

Economists like some inflation

In Asheville Wednesday, Trump slammed Biden and Harris alike on inflation. He also proposed two new tax cuts if he should win: No taxes on tips, and no taxes on Social Security benefits. Harris has also said she backs the idea of not taxing tips, but the two disagree on taxes for Social Security. Most Americans already pay no federal taxes on Social Security benefits, so the change would primarily help wealthy retirees.

North Carolina State University economics professor emeritus Mike Walden told WRAL that having some inflation is the sign of a healthy economy — but too much inflation is obviously not what consumers want to see.

“Prices are always going up,” he said. “The only time we saw a little bit of a dip into the negative was in early 2009. We all know what happened then: A terrible recession.”

The ideal inflation rate economists like to see, he said, is around 2%. Under Biden, the inflation rate went as high as 9.1% in June 2022. A year ago, in August 2023, inflation was at 3.7%. It was at 3% this June, and dropped further to 2.9% last month.

So Walden said it’s clearly heading in the right direction — which is good news politically for Biden and, by extension, Harris — but that it’s also understandable for voters to still feel financially squeezed, even though the numbers are improving.

“We’re obviously headed to that magic 2%,” he said. “But people are still behind, in terms of the fact that their incomes have not kept up with higher prices.”