Incumbent Democrat Bob Casey Jr. may be pitching himself as a moderate in most of the state, but he called in progressive reinforcements in deep-blue Montgomery County.
The three-term U.S. senator hit the campaign trail Friday in Montgomery County with his colleague Sen. Liz Warren (D-Mass.), one of the most outspoken progressives in the Senate, to blame Biden-era inflation on businessowners and promote government price controls as a solution.
Casey, locked in a tight race with businessman Dave McCormick, stood with Warren promising to fight so-called “greedflation,” the theory that businesses are artificially raising prices. It has been widely debunked by economists on the left and right.
Warren told the audience of about 300 people at Temple Ambler that Casey is a “fighter” and a “warrior.”
“At a time when the numbers were clear that giant corporations weren’t just passing along costs because of inflation but were actually gouging on prices, there wasn’t a single Republican who would stand up and call them out. There weren’t many Democrats, but Bob Casey stood up. He called out greedflation,” said Warren.
Warren later claimed that if Republicans win in November, “They are going to help the rich get richer, and everyone else can eat dirt.”
Casey has emerged as a leading proponent of the “greedflation” argument, which has also been made by President Joe Biden and his Vice President — the Democratic nominee for president — Kamala Harris. Harris has proposed federal price controls to fight inflation, placing the blame squarely on business owners for soaring inflation during Biden’s presidency.
On Friday, Casey claimed that from July 2020 to July 2022, corporate profits rose 75 percent. Which is “five times the rate of inflation…We have to pass price-gouging legislation to hold those companies accountable.”
He noted 37 state attorneys general can hold corporate price gougers accountable. He wants the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to have the same power to rein in larger national corporations.
“It’s when greed governs the decisions of major corporations,” he said. “We’re talking about the biggest conglomerates in the world that are jacking up prices with impunity, and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Economists, including former Clinton and Obama administration officials, have dismissed that as a conspiracy theory and say inflation is the result of monetary policy, not corporate greed.
“If greedy businesspeople were responsible for price increases, then slowing inflation would mean they are becoming less greedy,” Phillip S. Coles of Lehigh University’s College of Business recently wrote for The Wall Street Journal. “But while producers often think they can set prices, they rarely can. It isn’t because they aren’t greedy—they always try to change prices. It’s because they can charge only what the market will bear. It takes two opposing sides to make a deal, and consumers always look for a bargain.”
But progressives like Harris and Warren continue to promote the “greedflation” argument and shrug off the inflation of the Biden years which, at one point, hit 9.2 percent.
“We’ve seen low inflation and frankly relatively modest increases in inflation,” Warren said Friday. “Then the pandemic hits, and, yeah, prices go up.
“Here’s the deal. The big corporations are the ones that have market dominance in their area nationally. They looked over and said, ‘Hmm, inflation. Everybody’s talking about prices going up…Instead of just passing along those price increases, which would have been modest, they said, this is our big chance. We can jerk our prices even higher. And raise our overall profits,” Warren said.
“We’re giving the FTC, the federal government, the power to go after the big guys and fight on your behalf,” she added.
McCormick has been fighting back against the “greedflation” campaign by attacking “Bobflation,” pointing to the trillions dollars in new spending under Biden as the culprit behind inflation. He’s even got a website dedicated to it.
“Democrats Bob Casey and Kamala Harris recklessly spent your taxpayer dollars, which has sent the cost of Pennsylvania’s most iconic products and experiences skyrocketing,” according to the website.
Asked by a reporter if the government stimulus money was a factor in causing inflation, Warren said the stimulus money kept services like firefighting and schools going after the pandemic. Casey agreed, saying the American Rescue Plan saved jobs.
Casey also called McCormick “a bagman for billionaires.”
Asked about Charleroi, a western Pennsylvania borough that former President Donald Trump mentioned for its problems with immigrants, Casey blamed a company moving steelworker jobs “to the detriment of that community.”
Asked by DVJournal about millions of unvetted illegal immigrants pouring over the border under the Harris-Biden administration that McCormick says is a security issue, Casey said he’s voted at least 25 times for border security bills. He accused Republicans of killing the last border bill at the behest of Trump.
“We have to hire more border patrol (officers),” said Casey. “We should be hiring thousands more. We should invest in screening technology to detect fentanyl at the border…Mostly in vehicles driven by American citizens. That’s the reality of fentanyl.
“At the same time I’ve been fighting those battles, my opponent has been on Wall Street,” said Casey. “He’s been running a hedge fund, making a lot of money from China, investing in China’s military. He even invested in a company that produced 90 percent of the fentanyl in China.
“Because he takes his orders from Donald Trump, he refused to support the legislation I’ve already voted for twice, which would provide thousands more for border patrol, [and] give us those investments in the screening for fentanyl. This is legislation that was the most bipartisan, toughest border bill ever. And guess what? The border patrol supports it. And the border patrol, I don’t think, has endorsed me.
“My opponent doesn’t support it. He backed away from it. He doesn’t have the guts to stand up to Donald Trump on supporting bipartisan border security that I think would be the toughest border bill in 25 years,” said Casey.
Blair County Sheriff Jim Ott lost his son, Josh, to a fentanyl overdose and made an ad to support McCormick. Ott said, “If the border was secure, chances are my son would be alive today. We can’t bring back the people we’ve lost. But we can get rid of the weak politicians like Bob Casey who let it happen.”
McCormick promised to work on the border and fentanyl problem “on day one.”
“We lost 4,000 Pennsylvanians to fentanyl last year, and we’ll lose 4,000 or more again this year if something doesn’t change. My heart goes out to the Otts and every family impacted by this tragic epidemic,” said McCormick.
Casey, 64, whose father was a popular governor, served as state treasurer and auditor general before he was elected to the Senate in 2006.
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