AMBLER — From one community to another, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) on a campaign tour in suburban Philadelphia Friday to highlight one of the central issues of her 2024 campaign: “greedflation.”
“You can do a lot of things, but the fact that you came here to complain a little bit about corporate price gouging really speaks to me about your investment in this community and your investment in our country,” Warren told an audience at the Education Center on Temple University’s Ambler campus.
About 250 supporters gathered for the event moderated by state Sen. Maria Collett (D-Montgomery). Casey and Warren shared their views that the best way to lower costs for working families is to pass legislation that would allow the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on corporate price gouging.
Casey noted that of the 50 states, 37 allow their attorneys general to investigate and prosecute price gouging and hold companies in their states accountable. That’s not the case at the federal level, he said.
“The Federal Trade Commission doesn’t have that authority right now, so I’m working with Senator Warren, who has led this effort for years, to pass a price gouging bill, to go to court and prove that these large corporations are price gouging,” he said.
Casey, who is seeking a fourth term in the U.S. Senate, introduced Shrinkflation Prevention Act and The Act on the Prevention of Price Gougingboth were intended to draw attention to what he sees as corporate greed.
Warren, a progressive Democrat and staunch opponent of corporate power who came up with the idea for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before she was elected to the Senate, praised Casey as a leader in that area.
“This is about the concentration of corporate power,” Warren said. “Nobody has said it more eloquently than Senator Casey and the concentration on grocery stores and gas stations.”
During the more than 20-minute conversation, Warren also attacked Casey’s opponent, former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick.
“The point of this fight is you can pick a hedge fund guy to go to Washington and watch out for him… I don’t think that’s you,” Warren said. “Watch out for big investors, watch out for private equity.”
“Or you can elect someone else, like Bob Casey, who fights for you,” she added.
US Senator Bob Casey attacks corporations for keeping consumers in bondage to ‘greed’
During the election campaign and in television commercials, McCormick made the case that increased federal spendingsupported by Casey, is the cause of inflation.
“Of course Bob Casey, who is a liberal senator, has joined forces with extremist Elizabeth Warren,” McCormick spokesman Nate Sizemore wrote in an email to the Capital-Star. “That is why he is making Elizabeth Warren’s case for Venezuelan-style price controls.”
Speaking to reporters after the event, Casey defended his support for spending packages like the American Rescue Plan, arguing that it helped save jobs across the state. He also called for making the child tax credit eternal.
Casey also praised Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, for focusing on housing policy.
Another point Casey hammered home that he believes adds significance to the 2024 election is the GOP-backed 2017 tax bill, which is set to expire in 2025. He described next year as the “Super Bowl of taxes” and accused Republicans of wanting to “rig the system” in favor of enormous corporations.
Nationwide polls show Harris and former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, in a close race.
Some Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Friday showed Trump had a 2-point lead over Harris when voters were asked who they trusted more to handle the economy, though that lead has narrowed significantly in recent months.
While Harris and Trump are neck and neck in the fight for Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, with several ratings agencies describing the situation as “uncertain,” Casey appears to maintain a slight lead over McCormick.
Cook Political Report rates the US Senate race in Pennsylvania as “tilting towards the Democrats” and series of surveys this week Casey was leading by as much as 9 points and one poll from the Washington Post showing that they are connected.
Montgomery County, host of Friday’s campaign event, is the third-most populous county in Pennsylvania and one of the most Democratic counties in state elections.
In Casey’s three successful runs for U.S. Senate, he has won Montgomery County by double digits each time, as the county continues to shift left. He won the county by 32 points in 201818 points in 2012and 23 points in 2006.
While Casey was in Montgomery County in the southeast, McCormick campaigned Friday at a glass factory in Washington County in western Pennsylvania.
