Khan Helps DeLauro Pin Prices On ​“Gougers”

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro brought a progressive star with MAGA cred to town Monday to help craft an election season message about high food prices: Blame corporate price-gougers.

“We’re all appalled at families struggling for basic needs,” with one-seventh of the families in her Greater New Haven Third Congressional District experiencing hunger, DeLauro said at a ​“listening session” held at Fair Haven’s CitySeed headquarters on James Street about ​“lowering food costs and consumer protection.”

Accompanying the Congresswoman was Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, the Biden administration’s most visible opponent of corporate mergers who has led the federal government’s antitrust efforts against Big Tech and Big Agriculture. Khan began shaping the nation’s view on the subject with a paper examining Amazon’s predatory pricing practices while attending Yale Law School (Class of 2017).

DeLauro assembled 17 New Haveners who work on food, hunger, and public health around a three-sided rectangular table to listen and ask questions to Khan, whom she described as ​“a young, aggressive, dynamic woman willing to take on some of the biggest special interests in this country.” Participants included city and state agency heads as well as representatives of nonprofits ranging from CitySeed to Fair Haven Health.

With the event, DeLauro, who is seeking a 18th two-year term, repeated a tactic used in past campaigns: Gathering constituents whose agencies she has helped fund in office to discuss their concerns at a ​“roundtable” (or in this case a three-sided rectangular table) at which her own support is acknowledged.

She also on Monday pursued a strategy shared by many of her fellow Democrats across the country in addressing inflation and the economy.

Voters rate Republicans over Democrats on their handling of the economy. Republicans are running hard on blaming the Biden administration for exacerbating inflation through big-ticket public spending bills like the Inflation Reduction Act. Democrats originally planned to emphasize the Biden administration’s record of lowering inflation and avoiding a recession in tough post-pandemic times, while creating jobs. Now they’re diving into people’s concerns about inflation — acknowledging the painful rise in real inflation-adjusted terms of staples like food (25 percent) over the past four years — and pointing the finger at Big Food for price-gouging as the cause.

Khan dived into that message. She spoke about the consolidation of industries from agriculture to tech. She mentioned her agency’s aggressive enforcement of antitrust to oppose corporate mergers. She said the FTC is scrutinizing the proposed largest-ever grocery merger between the Kroger and Albertsons chains amid fears of resulting store closures and price hikes.

“When companies don’t have to compete, they can get away with higher prices because they know that consumers don’t have any other options,” Khan remarked.

“During the pandemic we saw very genuine legitimate sources of supply chain challenges, and prices went up as a result. But as those costs have come down, as those supply chain issues have eased, the prices are so high. There’s a basic question here of what’s really going on.”

Khan credited DeLauro for boosting the FTC’s work by sending extra ​“millions” as the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee (chairing it when her party held power).

She said the FTC is currently seeking to ban price discrimination by food distributors, which results in rural and independent grocers paying higher wholesale rates; ​“junk fees” that hide the true cost of goods through vague ​“transaction,” ​“service,” and ​“convenience” charges; and barriers manufacturers create to prevent farmers from fixing products themselves or taking them to local independent repair shops. 

For her part, DeLauro said she’s pursuing legislation to combat algorithm-based ​“targeted pricing” in which companies use personal data to charge vulnerable consumers more money than others. Upping the price for nut-free granola bars for a parent whose kid has a nut allergy, for instance. Or upping the price of a meal based on data about when the take-out purchaser takes their lunch break.

Khan’s antitrust and Big Tech-focused work has found unusual bipartisan support in these gridlocked times: MAGA Republicans like U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley and J.D. Vance have joined progressive Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren in praising Khan’s agenda, reflecting an emerging left-right partial consensus on corporate capitalism and trade. She was the toast of a Federalist Society event. (Read about that here.)

Still, before the hour-and-a-half event ended, Khan did add some words of defense for the Biden administration’s inflation record, without mentioning him or the party. She noted that overall inflation is under 1 percent so far this year for groceries after rising as high as 13 percent several years ago. Prices on cereal, potatoes, pasta have actually come down a bit, she said.

“Prices are still too high,” she acknowledged. ​“I know things can feel too slow” as the federal government combats monopoly capitalism, but ​“for 40 years we were [saying] ​‘Monopoly is good. Consolidation is good.’ ” She and like-minded Department of Justice, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Agriculture, and Securities and Exchange Commission appointees have had three years to redirect the ship of state. The unspoken suggestion: It’s now moving in the right direction, and should continue that way.