With inflationary costs reaching a 40-year high under the Biden-Harris administration, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others in their administration have repeatedly blamed businesses, livestock producers, grocery stores, oil and natural gas companies and others for high prices.
At the same time, a record number of businesses closed, declared bankruptcy and laid off hundreds of thousands of workers, citing high inflationary costs. In a recent report, nearly half of all small businesses said they wonât survive a second Harris term, higher costs and increased taxes, The Center Square reported.
Despite this, Harris says she plans to implement price controls, increase taxes on businesses and allow the 2017 tax cuts to expire, creating a $6 trillion chasm between her plan and former President Donald Trumpâs, the Wall Street Journal reported.
As Americans struggled with increased grocery costs, including the high cost of meat, producers were faced with higher fuel, feed, grain and hay costs, driving up their operational costs that were passed onto consumers, according to multiple reports. In response, in 2021, the White House National Economic Council blamed high meat prices on âdominant corporations in uncompetitive markets taking advantage of their market power.â
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce disagrees, arguing that market concentration in the meat packing industry had been virtually unchanged for 25 years at the time. It then asked âif high prices are the result of corporate greed, why did these âgreedyâ companies wait two decades to raise prices?â It clarified that increased meat prices were driven by supply and demand and overall inflation, largely created by increased federal spending and debt.
With costs increasing across the board, some companies adjusted by selling less product for more, referred to as shrinkflation, The Center Square first reported in 2022. However, Biden and Harris blamed companies for higher costs, reportedly in response to Democratic operatives advising them to do so, Theâ Washington Post reported.
âWhat we said is, âYou need a villain or an explanation for this. If you donât provide one, voters will fill one in. The right is providing an explanation, which is that youâre spending too much,ââ one Democratic operative told the Post. âThat point finally became convincing to people in the White House.â
âAnd thus began the effort to wrongly blame employers for high prices,â the chamberâs executive vice president Neil Bradley said in a report identifying examples of the White House âwrongly blaming businesses for high prices.â
Also in 2022, Biden publicly blamed container companies for high shipping costs. News reports pointed to supply chain issues impacted by worker shortages, changes in customer spending that resulted in more cargo arriving in ports that the ports couldnât handle, and port fines and fees contributing to higher costs.
The chamber notes that increased prices âresulted from consumers shifting their spending from services to goodsâ during the COVID-lockdown era, causing increased cargo demand. âIncreased demand created backlogs at the ports, raising prices even higher. As supply and demand normalized, prices fell.â
By 2023, the president again publicly blamed the U.S. oil and natural gas industry for gas prices reaching a seven-year high. This was after he took more than 200 actions against the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, U.S. House Democrats introduced a bill that would have added a 50% per barrel tax, and the U.S. Treasury Department proposed a $110 billion tax hike on the industry, The Center Square reported.
But the industry doesnât control the market, itâs subject to it like everyone else, Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association President Ed Longanecker said. The Biden-Harris administration could have lowered costs by expediting permits, lifting the federal leasing ban and creating âa more stable regulatory environment that provides certainty to producers and investors,â he told The Center Square. âOverburdensome regulations, increased taxes and anti-oil and natural gas rhetoricâ exacerbated high energy prices and raised consumer costs, he said.
The administration has also repeatedly sued the industry and Texas, which leads U.S. production, exports and energy creation. In response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has aggressively fought to protect the Texas industry from Biden policies, the governor argues.
Also in 2023, the chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers said grocery sector profit margins âwere elevatedâ and needed to âpass-throughâ to consumers. Earlier this year, Biden again claimed, “there are still too many corporations in America ripping people off: price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation.â
The chamber refutes these claims, pointing to federal data, arguing that âhigher grocery prices are a result of inflationary pressure across the supply chain and basic supply and demand dynamics,â explained by Department of Agriculture and Government Accountability Office economists.
Biden and Harris blaming businesses for high prices is âentirely backward,â Bradley says. âThe truth is the Administrationâs own fiscal and regulatory policies are driving inflation, and the American consumer is left holding the bag.â
