A 2019 video of a Kamala Harris campaign event made the rounds on the internet Friday night after the Democrat presidential hopeful unveiled some of her economic proposals, including her apparent desire for Soviet-style price controls on groceries.
During her ill-fated run for president, the now-vice president said she could lower prices on drugs simply by having the government seize patents from pharmaceutical companies and “take over.” That’s not how a free-market economy is supposed to work, but the giddy Harris didn’t care:
“My plan, as a candidate for president, on these drug prices is as follows: We are going to set drug prices based on fair market,” Harris said during a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday. “So, essentially what we’re going to do – and you can visit the website if you will, and if not, get you some documents – but essentially what we’re going to do is set drug prices so that American consumers are charged a price for drugs that’s the average price that’s being charged around the globe.”
But she didn’t think she needed Congress or legislation to tackle the problem, she’d just march in herself and use the enormous power of the federal government (emphasis mine):
“And there’s a huge difference, insulin being an example,” Harris continued. “The other thing is this, if people don’t want to cooperate with that, I’m also going to do the next thing, which is this: A lot of drugs, prescription medication, was born out of the federal funding for the research and development of that drug. Your taxpayer dollars.”
“So, for any drug where they fail to play by our rules, and if that drug came about from federal funding for what’s called ‘R&D,’ research and development, I will snatch their patent so that we will take over,” Harris continued.
Watch:
The party frightened about the 'threat to our democracy' is nominating a wannabe tyrant.
Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw responded at the time:
She was asked the salient question, can you really do that? Hell yeah, said Kamala (emphasis mine):
According to the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel, somebody in attendance asked the obvious question: Can you do that? “Yes, we can do that,” Harris replied. “We just need the will to do that.”
Patent law is notoriously complex, and there are certainly some drug companies that take advantage of them. I have no love for the Pfizers of the world who raked in billions with their flawed COVID vaccines. But her view of the government’s role is chilling, and she seems drunk on power (that she didn’t even have at the time). We have seen the Biden administration weaponizing the powers of the executive branch throughout his term, but Kamala—between her past statements and her newly announced Bolshevik economic policies—sounds like she literally wants to change our hugely successful capitalist economy into something else entirely. Of course, her ideas have been tried in places like Venezuela, the former U.S.S.R., Argentina, and elsewhere, and although they sound oh-so-nice, they never end well.