Left-wing Washington Post slams Harris’ price-gouging crackdown plan: ‘Squandered the moment’

Even the Washington Post isn’t buying Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan to slap socialist price controls on groceries.

The longtime, left-leaning broadsheet — owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos — published a scathing editorial ripping the Democratic presidential nominee for claiming price gouging is causing inflation and, rather than offer a legit plan to fix it, offering only “populist gimmicks.”

With food prices surging more than 20% nationwide during the Biden-Harris administration, Harris, during a North Carolina rally earlier Friday, unveiled economic policies she’d enact during her first 100 days as president that include enforcing government price controls on groceries.

Instead of “level[ing] with voters” and saying “inflation spiked in 2021 mainly because the pandemic snarled supply chains, and that the Federal Reserve’s policies, which the Biden-Harris administration supported, are working to slow it,” the veep “opted for a less forthright route: Blaming big business,” the newspaper wrote.

Bezos, a supporter for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, purchased the newspaper in 2013, but he began taking a more active role in its operations in the past year.

The billionaire’s powerhouse portfolio — which includes e-commerce king Amazon and the Whole Food Market chain — would likely be impacted by Harris’ Commie-friendly policy ideas like having the Federal Trade Commission enforce a federal ban on price gouging that includes dishing out hefty penalties to companies that set exorbitantly high prices.

“Ms. Harris says she’ll target companies that make ‘excessive’ profits, whatever that means,” the editorial board barked.

However, it slammed her idea to dole out $25,000 to help first-time homeowners with their down payments, saying it “risks putting upward pressure on prices.”

“Thankfully, this gambit by Ms. Harris has been met with almost instant skepticism, with many critics citing President Richard M. Nixon’s failed price controls from the 1970s. Whether the Harris proposal wins over voters remains to be seen, but if sound economic analysis still matters, it won’t.”

The editorial board had a warmer opinion of Harris’ housing plan, saying it is “built on a slightly firmer foundation” and called her tax incentives “clever.”

“Such a measure might make sense if Ms. Harris paid for it by eliminating other demand-side housing subsidies, such as the mortgage interest deduction, a roughly $30 billion annual drain on federal revenue that benefits many wealthy Americans — but she does not,” the newspaper wrote. 

It also said Harris’ “firmest ground” was her proposal to increase the child tax credit from $2,000 per child to $3,600, among other tax breaks. 

The Harris campaign did not immediately return messages.