Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration have had more than three years to acknowledge that prices are too high and try to fix the problem, but now she's presenting a price control agenda that is little more than an attempt to buy votes, former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta told Newsmax on Sunday.
"The Washington Post recently ran a story calling it a gimmick, and they called it a gimmick because we all know price controls don't work to lead to shortages," Acosta, who served in former President Donald Trump's administration, told Newsmax's "Sunday Agenda."
"Think of what happened with COVID and all the shortages in the supermarket. That's what you're going to get if her plan is put through."
Further, experts say Harris' plans to control prices on groceries, housing, and medical care will cost the nation $1.7 trillion, said Acosta.
"So in one move, we're going to double the size of the federal deficit to $4 trillion," he said. "That's just not possible. This is just an attempt to buy votes, and I think most Americans are smart enough that they're not going to fall for it."
One of Harris' plans calls to fight back against what she claimed is price gouging in the grocery industry, but Acosta rejected that argument as well.
"Her Department of Labor says the profit margin on groceries is less than 2%," he said. "It's closer to 1%. So grocers aren't price gouging."
The problem is that costs have gone up across the board, Acosta added.
"The cost of employees has gone up," he said. "The price of goods, the price of shipping has gone up. Everything has gone up on groceries, the same way that we have to pay more every time we go to buy something."
Meanwhile, almost nobody has come out in favor of Harris' economic plan, Acosta pointed out.
"The Washington Post, CNN — everyone acknowledged it's a socialist plan that doesn't work," he said. "But the real issue behind this is: Who is the real Kamala Harris?"
The Democrats' nominee has flip-flopped on several matters, Acosta said.
"In 2020, she was for Medicare for all, for a single-payer system," he said. "Now that she's running for president, magically, she's not in 2020.
"She wanted to ban fracking. But we all know that Pennsylvania is a key state and that fracking is a large part of the Pennsylvania economy. And so now she said, 'Well, I misspoke.'"
But the media is not calling her out on her changing agenda, Acosta said.
"Her plan just from this week is going to cost $1.7 trillion, and you and I and all the taxpayers will have to pay for it," he added. "Our budget deficits are already higher than they've ever been.
"Our national debt is at the level that it was during World War II, and we're not fighting a war. We cannot continue to just monetize all this debt.
"Taxes will have to go up, and they'll have to go up a lot. And Kamala Harris is OK with that because she favors a large tax, large spend state," Acosta said.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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