Former CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder explains why Vice President Kamala Harris is in a 'tough spot' on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

Vice President Kamala Harris announced her economic agenda last Friday. It can best be summarized as deflection and projection. She attempts to defer the blame for inflation from Biden-Harris economic policy — where it belongs — to what she claims is "price gouging" by American businesses. Ironically, data from the administration’s own Labor Department proves her claims of price gouging are simply false.

Prices paid by businesses (as measured by the producer price index) have risen 19.4 percent under the Biden-Harris administration. That’s precisely the same increase as occurred in the prices paid by consumers over this period (as measured by the consumer price index). In other words, inflation has been impacting the entire supply chain from producers to consumers.

Had producers or retailers been price gouging (that is, increasing prices more than inflation justified), the rate of inflation for consumers would have exceeded that for producers. It did not. 

Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz hold a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., August 20, 2024. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

In fact, consumer price increases have only recently caught up with the price increases businesses faced. For most of the last three and half years, cumulative inflation for businesses has been higher than cumulative inflation for families. In other words, businesses were increasing consumer prices more slowly than inflation was increasing their costs.

KAMALA HARRIS' ECONOMICALLY ILLITERATE AGENDA WILL JUST TANK AMERICANS' FINANCES EVEN........

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