Bob Casey shows Democrats how to fight against inflation and corporate price gouging

US Sen. Bob Casey continues to prosecute the case against inflation and corporate price gouging in an exclusive interview with The Keystone. 

Corporate price gouging and the costs it’s having on families across the country is starting to gain the attention of more Democrats thanks to one unlikely source, US Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA). 

Casey started exposing corporations for price gouging, via “greedflation” and “shrinkflation,” last fall and continued making that argument against corporate price gouging in a recent interview with The Keystone. 

“The same corporations that got this huge gross windfall through that 2017 tax bill are the same corporations that are engaged right now in greedflation,” Casey said. “Jacking up the prices of food and household items over and over again for years now, ripping families off.” 

“That’s why I’ve taken them on. I’ve called ’em out, I’ve exposed them. They’re pretty damn angry about that.”

According to a report issued by Casey’s office, inflation rose 14% between 2020 and 2022 while corporate profits rose by 75% during that same period. This price gouging cost the average Pennsylvania family $6,740. 

Last week, The New York Times reported that US Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has made corporate price gouging a hallmark for his reelection campaign in a state that supports former president Donald Trump. 

Six of Casey’s colleagues running for reelection this year have signed onto his Shrinkflation Reduction Act and in the House, US Reps. Susan Wild (D-PA) and Chris Delizio (D-PA) signed onto similar legislation.  

Democrats joining in the pushback against corporate price gouging is about “accountability,” according to Casey. 

“I think it’s just a simple case of holding corporations accountable,” Casey said. “In the case of these multinational corporations, it’s like the wild west. They got these huge corporate tax breaks and what did they do with those tax breaks? They pocketed them and then they jacked up their prices.”

Casey, the son of former two-term governor Bob Casey Sr., is running for his fourth term in the US Senate against Dave McCormick, the Republican nominee and a former Connecticut-based hedge fund manager, and he wants Pennsylvania voters to understand whose side he stands on. 

“When you have to make a choice between siding with powerful interests like major corporations and multinational corporations and billionaires and extraordinarily wealthy Americans, I have chosen to be on the side of workers and the most vulnerable among us,” Casey said.

“Unfortunately, I think Mr. McCormick is going to be another vote in a Senate, were he to be successful, he’d be another vote for those billionaire tax cuts we saw in that gross, obscene 2017 tax bill.”

Throughout the campaign, Casey has made it a point to hammer McCormick for being a Connecticut resident while trying to run for Senate in Pennsylvania. 

The Associated Press reported last summer that McCormick rents a $16 million mansion on Connecticut’s “Gold Coast,” which is one of the densest concentrations of wealth in the country. The Westport property comes with an elevator, a 1,500-bottle wine cellar and a private beachfront resort on the Long Island Sound. 

“I think one of the problems with my opponent is he wasn’t truthful about living in the state,” Casey said. “He was asserting over and over again in 2022, 2023 and 2024 that he lived in Pennsylvania and he doesn’t. He lives in Connecticut. He should have just been upfront about that.”

Casey also hammered McCormick on fabricating his childhood upbringing about growing up on a family farm. The New York Times reported in April that McCormick’s father was the president of Bloomsburg University and then the chancellors of the public higher education systems in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. 

“In addition to that, not only about where he lives, but I think misled the people in the state about how he grew up,” Casey said. “He tried to make the case that ‘he came from nothing.’ He had a secure upbringing just like I did. We were both blessed to have grown up the way that we did and just be upfront about that.” 

Lastly, Casey talked about the benefits President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has brought to Pennsylvania. The commonwealth has received close to $16 billion in funding from infrastructure law to fund more than 450 projects. 

Casey had a hard time choosing a specific project as his favorite because “the value of this infrastructure bill is almost incalculable,” but eventually focused on broadband expansion. Pennsylvania received over $1.2 billion from the infrastructure law to connect residents to high-speed internet. 

“There’s no way you can put a value on that,” Casey said. 

“Bringing high speed internet, not just to a city like Philadelphia and the neighborhoods that don’t have it, but to rural areas, vast expanses of our state where you don’t have any high-speed internet at all, and I’ve driven through this state or have been driven and places where there hasn’t been much connectivity. That means kids can’t do their homework. It means farmers cannot operate a farm. Small businesses can’t operate high-speed.”