We are concerned that Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is warming up to a series of measures to prevent what it describes as “price-gouging” for groceries.

Advocates for free markets that are unencumbered by invasive government policies fear the measures amount to price controls — and we fear they are largely right.

“Price controls have been disastrous whenever they’ve been implemented,” Liz Wolfe of Reason magazine notes.

Prices, she succinctly describes are “signals” — they convey to retailers and industries how much of a product is sought by consumers.

“Giving the government the power to meddle in the economy in this way will not drive prices down, it will force some firms to go out of business and some consumers to experience shortages of goods they would have otherwise been able to purchase,” Wolfe continues. “The scale at which this devastation happens is contingent on the scale at which the government chooses to meddle.”

It is our long-standing belief that government intervention in free markets, no matter how well-intentioned, produces, even under the best circumstances, unintended consequences — consequences that government authorities are neither nimble or nuanced enough to address.

While we have long argued that the Biden administration was falling short of recognizing the damage inflation was doing to American families and businesses and we appreciate that the proposal attempts to address this critical issue, we hope the Harris campaign can revise and refocus its approach.

Permitting reform and policies that streamline the development of domestic energy to lower the costs all businesses and families face to power and heat their workplaces and homes, eliminating bureaucratic “red tape” that drives up the costs of producing goods and services and reining the size and scope of government — particularly the federal government — will have a greater positive impact on employers’ ledgers and families’ pocketbooks than attempting to dictate what farmers, factories and grocery stores can charge.