Local opinion: A plan to lower prices for all Arizonans
After a recent stop at a Subway sandwich shop, my friends and I emerged with three sandwiches, three drinks, three air-filled bags of chips and a $45 bill. We've all been living this reality for months now, crazy high prices on everything from bread to batteries. While it's caused me to revive my mom's bargain-hunting skills, for others, especially for those making minimum wage and our seniors on fixed incomes, the consequences have been far more dire – skipping meds to pay for rent and food or going into crippling credit card debt. Given inflation is dropping steadily, how is it that a box of cereal still costs $5, and what can we do about it?
According to the Federal Trade Commission, many retailers have taken advantage of inflationary conditions and the pandemic supply chain disruptions to pad their profits. Case in point: in the FTC trial seeking to block his company's merger with fellow grocery-giant Albertsons, Kroger's Senior Director of Pricing admitted to raising prices of essential items like milk and eggs above that of inflation while raking in more than $3 billion in profit last year.
This is price-gouging, something we in Arizonans became all too familiar with during the pandemic. As a member of the Arizona House, I sought to give our Attorney General the same authority possessed by 36 other states to fine retailers who excessively jack up prices of essential goods during an emergency. Despite widespread public support, my bill failed to garner a majority in the Republican-controlled Legislature. A missed opportunity for everyday Arizonans.
While we have brands galore, most items we eat are produced by just a handful of companies. Just four — Cargill, JBS, National Beef Packing Co., and Tyson Foods — control 70% of U.S. beef production. JBS just paid a $25 million fine for conspiring with other meat producers to artificially raise the price of beef for the past decade. Massive consolidation in the healthcare industry has seen thousands of hospitals close, many of them in rural areas, and the prices charged by even nonprofit hospitals increase.
Which brings us to one of the reasons I am running for Congress. Congress needs to protect consumers by passing legislation that first targets the most extreme cases of price-gouging and second strengthens the government's ability to crack down on price-fixing in addition to the massive consolidation of corporations, from food to housing, healthcare and the internet, that are driving up prices, depressing wages, and robbing consumers of choice.
Congress can do so by strengthening antitrust enforcement and stopping mergers that pose a material risk of lessening competition. We need to protect consumers from a monopolistic arrangement before it drives up prices. We also need clearer authority to stop price-fixing. Currently the Department of Justice is investigating software companies such as RealPage for creating products that enable housing managers to fix apartment rental prices. It should be made clear that price-fixing by algorithm is still price-fixing.
Finally, we should empower the federal government to bring down the prices of essential items like life-saving prescription drugs that are blowing a hole in the family budget. Medicare can now negotiate with Big Pharma to lower prices and it has. Starting in 2026, it is estimated that the newly negotiated lower price of 10 drugs will save Medicare beneficiaries $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs in 2026 alone, and the federal government, $6 billion. Incredibly, my opponent, Juan Ciscomani, opposed the law that made such price-savings possible.
Similarly, the current Congress, including my opponent, has done nothing to help consumers manage the high costs that are ripping holes in family budgets, much less promote competition and fairness in the marketplace. Even worse, Ciscomani has consistently voted to slash the funding for the FTC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and just a couple of months ago voted to make it harder for these agencies to go after price-gouging companies. It's about time we flip the script on our federal legislature and get to work restoring competition and choice in the marketplace to lower prices.
Kirsten Engel is the Democratic Party's candidate for Arizona's 6th Congressional District.
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