CHICAGO — U.S. Sen. Bob Casey brought his fight against corporate greed — and his bid for a fourth term — to the stage of the Democratic National Convention Thursday, using the national spotlight to rally delegates and viewers around one of his core campaign issues as Democrats seek to hold a slim majority in the Senate.
The Pennsylvania senator, engaged in one of the most pivotal and expensive races in the country against Republican challenger David McCormick, pledged to raise the stakes in the battle against price gouging at a time when American families are feeling pinched at grocery stores and gas stations while being hit with hefty fees when they travel or order food.
“In just six months a box of diapers went up $15,” Mr. Casey said after taking the podium and greeting his fellow Pennsylvanians in the front row. “Corporations say your prices have gone up only because their costs have gone up. Prices are up because corporations are scheming to drive them up.”
The senator, a former state auditor and treasurer and the son of a governor, accused companies of “extorting families at the checkout counter.”
“This is greedflation,” he said. “I’ve been fighting it for a long time. So has Kamala Harris. And we’re finally starting to win.”
Mr. Casey partly has blamed inflation on company price hikes to increase profits, as opposed to the policies of the Biden administration. He has released reports over the past year on what he describes as corporate greed, citing federal data and research showing corporate profiteering cost the average Pennsylvania family more than $3,500 in 2022.
The message has already been picked up by leading Democrats this year. And while Republicans have blasted Mr. Casey on the issue — and some economists have been critical as well — Democrats hope the theme will resonate with struggling swing state voters who are increasingly excited about the reshaped Democratic ticket according to recent polls.
Mr. Casey said Congress and the Biden administration successfully capped the price of insulin at $35, and pledged that next year — “when she’s president” — Ms. Harris will sign a bill targeting price gouging at grocery stores.
“And when corporations take advantage of a crisis, like toilet paper during the pandemic, we’ll hit them with fines when Kamala Harris is president,” he said.
President Joe Biden, during his fiery State of the Union address in March, touted his administration’s efforts to crack down on corporations for price gouging and deceptive pricing — issues the senator has arisen in a series of reports on corporate greed over the last year.
“Pass Bobby Casey’s bill,” the president told Congress, referencing a bill to combat “shrinkflation” — which he described as “paying higher prices for smaller products while corporate CEOs brag about record profits.”
Republicans have roundly attacked the Democrats’ messaging as radical and leftist, and they also say it’s Mr. Biden’s policies that have helped drive up prices.
Former President Donald Trump told supporters in Wilkes-Barre last weekend that such price controls have never worked, and that the Harris-Walz ticket is the most liberal in the country’s history.
Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO and George W. Bush administration official, said last year that the senator was “in denial about what caused inflation — massive government spending that Joe Biden carried out with Bob Casey’s support.”
On X before Mr. Casey’s speech Thursday, he said “no senator was a bigger cheerleader for Kamala Harris’s reckless spending than Bob Casey. In 2021, Casey urged Harris and Biden to spend BIG.”
Elizabeth Gregory, Mr. McCormick’s communications director, said in a statement Thursday that Mr. Casey spoke “in support of Venezuelan-style socialist price controls.”
“Pennsylvania families are being crushed by the high cost of living because the liberal Biden-Harris-Casey agenda has failed them, and yet career politician Bob Casey wants voters to believe it's not his fault,” she said. “Ridiculous.”
Economists see pandemic-related spending meant to stabilize the economy (by both the Trump and Biden administrations) as a factor, along with war-impacted supply chains and steps taken by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
The National Bureau of Economic Research has partly blamed the inflation on roughly $5 trillion in combined government spending under Trump and Mr. Biden, saying it contributed to strong consumer and business demand that tightened labor markets, “putting upward pressure on wages and prices.”
The oil market, disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has been a factor as well, NBER said, as Mr. Casey started releasing reports on the issue last fall.
Jason Furman, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Barack Obama, told the New York Times last week that price gouging policies could dissuade new companies from getting into the market altogether because prices won’t be able to rise in the wake of strong demand.
"This is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality," he said. "There’s no upside here, and there is some downside."
But the crowds here in Chicago have embraced the message against corporate greed all week.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont advocated taking on “Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Tech, and all the other corporate monopolists whose greed is denying progress for working people."
"These oligarchs tell us we shouldn't tax the rich," he said. "The oligarchs tell us we shouldn't take on price gouging; we shouldn't expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision; and we shouldn't increase Social Security benefits for struggling seniors. Well, I’ve got some bad news for them: That is precisely what we are going to do, and we’re going to win this struggle because this is precisely what the American people want from their government.”
Mr. Casey, who did not mention Mr. McCormick or focus directly on his own campaign during his brief speech, said Americans don’t expect goods to be free, but they do expect prices to be fair.
Mr. Casey has noted that from July 2020 through July 2022, “inflation rose by 14% while corporate profits rose by more than 74% — nearly five times the rate of inflation.”
“Americans are hard-working, honest people, and that’s what we’re fighting for,” he said. “We’re fighting for honesty. I’m fighting for it. Kamala Harris is fighting for it. Will you fight for it? All right, let’s win this thing.”
First Published: August 23, 2024, 12:15 a.m.
Updated: August 23, 2024, 7:49 p.m.
