Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump don’t want to walk down the campaign trail talking about mergers, acquisitions, and the Federal Trade Commission. They do, on the other hand, want to discuss grocery prices.
The most enduring pain of the largest spike in inflation in 40 years, under the leadership of President Joe Biden, has been shoppers’ receipts when they come home from buying groceries. Inflation has subsided, but just because prices for food aren’t rising at the same rate as they were when inflation was near 9% doesn’t mean bread, milk, and eggs are as affordable as they were four years ago.
Kroger, one of the largest grocery chains in the United States, is attempting to buy Albertsons, a slightly smaller though still massive chain, for $24.6 billion. The companies say the historic merger is the only way they can compete with big-box retailers such as Target, Walmart, and Amazon. However, the FTC is opposing the deal, claiming it will force grocery prices up if the giants don’t have to compete with each other.
The Washington Examiner has taken a hard look at the origins of this deal and the wider ramifications it could have on the administrative state in our Supermarket Sweep Up series. This morning, Economics Reporter Zach Halaschak rounded out our look at this thorny problem with a brass-tacks explanation of how Harris and Trump view the deal and what they are saying about grocery prices.
“The politics surrounding the merger are a bit jumbled for Republicans. That is because the party, under former President Donald Trump, has tipped more and more toward populism and away from the typical Republican stance of supporting big business and getting the government out of corporate operations,” Zach wrote.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate, is a particularly conflicted character in this saga. He has been far more supportive of FTC Commissioner Lina Khan than your average Republican, praising her for her focus on regulating Big Tech companies such as Amazon.
“So, look, she’s not perfect, but the thing I really like about Lina is she doesn’t focus on the ridiculous woke stuff,” Vance told Zach last month. “She recognizes that her job, agree or disagree, is to actually work at the FTC and not to be like a ridiculous diversity enforcer. I do appreciate that.”
Harris is working hard to unstitch herself from Biden’s record on inflation. Trump and Vance are doing everything they can to saddle her with Biden’s record.
In her first stab at proposing a hard policy, Harris went straight to grocery prices. Her plan to eliminate “price gouging” was blasted by critics as dressed-up price controls, which have historically led to shortages of desired goods rather than easier access to them.
Both candidates have danced around the topic but have yet to weigh in on the merger specifically.
Peter Loge, director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, told Zach it could be a winning item for Harris and ostensibly for Trump if candidates talked about the merger in concrete terms to voters.
“If I were a Democratic candidate in one of those places, I might argue that the Republican solution is to give rich people more money and big businesses should get bigger,” Loge said. “But the Democratic solution is: ‘Let’s make sure groceries are affordable, and big companies getting bigger mean higher prices for everyone because there’s less competition.’”
Click here to read more about the political realities of the historic Kroger-Albertsons merger.
Hidin’ Harris
Four years ago, Biden ran a successful basement campaign. His media appearances were scarce. He released videos, ads, and tweets but remained mostly out of the spotlight.
Campaigning in the middle of a pandemic as a 78-year-old candidate isn’t quite the same as delivering a message four years later that the times have changed, the health crisis has passed, and a younger, more vigorous candidate is ready to take the reins.
Harris is trying to paint herself as the latter while performing like the former.
Voters and journalists had to wait weeks for Harris to sit down for a real interview as the Democratic nominee after Biden was pushed out of the presidential race. And that interview wasn’t devoted to her. The debut event was a side-by-side conversation with her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN).
The vice president has been media-shy throughout her tenure as Biden’s No. 2, and her strategy hasn’t changed much since she vaulted to the top of the party. She has announced a spate of appearances with local outlets as she barnstorms through battleground counties in coming weeks, though it’s not clear how much photographic or video evidence there will be of her appearances, White House Reporter Haisten Willis wrote for us this morning.
“Harris has not conducted any press conferences and has only occasionally taken questions from traveling reporters, though her campaign did call for an additional debate following her solid performance against Trump, which he rejected Thursday,” Haisten wrote.
“Tensions between Harris and the national media bubbled into public view this week thanks to a letter to her campaign from the White House News Photographers Association,” he wrote.
Vice presidents typically have space to bring nine journalists with them as they travel, while presidents have space for 13.
When reporters complained to Harris that she hadn’t expanded the number of reporters and photographers who could travel with the campaign, her press secretary said making more space was “not viable.”
Besides limiting press pool access to her, the Harris campaign has also boxed out an entire media outlet from the most important state this cycle — Pennsylvania.
“While Harris is now pledging to do more interviews with news outlets in battleground states, her campaign also has spats at that level,” Haisten wrote. “The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says the Harris campaign has blocked it from all future events owing to a labor dispute involving one-quarter of the outlet’s unionized workforce. It is the second-largest newsgathering organization in battleground Pennsylvania and the largest in Pittsburgh.”
Voters aren’t punishing Harris for her scant appearances yet. Though she isn’t experiencing the same soaring numbers she had when she first entered the race.
The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Harris out ahead of Trump by 1.5 points. That’s a lead she has held for weeks after Biden consistently trailed. Harris isn’t going to spurn a lead of any kind, but things can still change.
On this day four years ago, Biden was leading Trump by 7.4 points. In 2016, Hillary Clinton had a 2.4-point lead.
Click here to read more about Harris’s media-averse media strategy.
Tax cut conundrum
Harris and Democrats would like to tarnish Trump’s record on the economy by trashing his plan to cut taxes.
They have been quick to attack that “his plan is to do what he has done before, which is to provide a tax cut for billionaires and big corporations, which will result in $5 trillion to America’s deficit,” as Harris said during the debate on Tuesday night.
One problem for Harris — she has promised to copy most of Trump’s signature tax cut plan for the middle class and is promising big spending on top of the cuts.
Zach is up with a second item this morning parsing through the corner Harris is backing herself in to with her constant attacks on Trump’s tax plan — and the economics ideas she seems to be cribbing from him and his campaign.
“Harris’s campaign has said she doesn’t want to raise taxes on those earning under $400,000, but if the individual provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, known as the TCJA or Trump tax cuts, expire as scheduled next year, most middle-class workers will see their taxes increase,” Zach wrote. “To prevent that, Harris will have to extend the provisions for those earning under that threshold, adding to the deficit, just as she is hitting Trump for.”
“Extending the tax cuts for those earning under $400,000 comes with a massive price tag, a price tag that Harris’s campaign hasn’t addressed,” he added.
Her campaign isn’t copying every jot and tittle of Trump’s tax plan and would try to recover some of the $2 trillion to $3 trillion deficit her plan would cause with taxes on unrealized gains for people with a wealth of more than $100 million and jacking up the corporate tax rate to 28%.
That would go some way to closing the gap, assuming the wealth tax wouldn’t be struck down as unconstitutional.
But Harris’s plan doesn’t stop at cutting taxes for people making less than $400,000 a year. She also wants to, like Trump and Vance, end taxes on tipped wages and supports a $6,000 tax credit for newborns. Her baby bump credit is almost identical, though more expensive, than Vance’s proposed $5,000 credit.
Don’t expect Harris to lay off her criticism of Trump and his plans for the economy. Just keep an eye out for how she will try to explain her plan to mirror his proposals and not wind up mirroring the deficit hole she says he would put the country in.
Click here to read more about Harris’s tricky tax plan.
New from us
The Democratic Party’s energy debacle
Taunting Trump might not have been what undecided voters wanted to see from Harris
Democrats hope Taylor Swift voter registration plea can turbocharge party’s efforts after Biden drag
Rashida Tlaib parts ways with anti-Israel consultant for terrorism-linked groups
DOJ drops Jan. 6 obstruction charges in more than half of pending cases
In case you missed it
Joe Manchin can’t stop making life hard for Senate Democrats
This is why Harris gave Polish voters a shoutout on Tuesday night
Trump has two fewer reasons to be worried about his legal troubles in Georgia
For your radar
Biden will speak at a brunch in celebration of black excellence at noon before hosting a bilateral meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He will travel to Wilmington, Delaware, for the weekend.
Harris will speak at a campaign event in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, at 6:35 p.m.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 2:30 p.m.
Trump will hold a rally in Las Vegas at 10 p.m. Eastern.
