Economic commentator warns: Harris' price control plan has already been tested in Venezuela, Argentina and the Soviet Union.

A liberal economic columnist criticized Vice President Kamala Harris' proposal to control food and grocery prices as “completely unworkable,” comparing it to the failed efforts of communist governments.

“It's not going to be the markets, it's not going to be supply and demand that determines how much your grocery store charges for milk or eggs, it's going to be some bureaucrat in Washington DC, and that seems totally unworkable,” Catherine Rampell said on CNN on Friday.

Rampell, a Washington Post columnist and CNN economics and politics commentator, argued the plan was “bad” for a variety of reasons, from practicality to effectiveness.

“Well, first of all, no one can explain what price gouging means,” she said on CNN. The term “excessive” prices or profit margins is subjective and therefore “very difficult to define what that actually means.”

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She also criticized the Democrats' legislative proposals, which would “likely serve as a template” for Harris' policy proposals, calling them “particularly bad.”

“When you look at the bill, which, as I mentioned, is already in the Senate and is being spearheaded by Senators Warren and Bob Casey and a whole host of others, the particular way it's written, which will likely serve as a template for whatever proposal Harris ends up adopting, is particularly bad. It simply prohibits inflated prices, grossly inflated prices, grossly inflated profit margins, and says that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can use any yardstick it thinks is appropriate to decide what that would mean,” she said, rejecting the idea “of the FTC deciding, for example, how much Kroger charges for eggs in Michigan.”

Moreover, she argued, the plan would be “very bad for the markets” and could lead to the same failed path as socialist and communist governments.

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Vice President Harris' price control plan would have a negative impact on the markets, argued CNN commentator Catherine Rampell. ((Photo by Li Jianguo/Xinhua via Getty Images))

“We've seen this kind of thing tried in many other countries: Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, etc. It creates shortages, it creates black markets, you know, a lot of uncertainty,” she said.

“And furthermore, the specific language of this bill could actually lead to price increases because of some of the other language. For example, it will require companies – publicly traded companies – to disclose in their quarterly reports, their quarterly earnings reports, how they set their prices. That's a great way to help them with the collusion that we don't normally want,” she explained.

Rampell predicted that any legislation upholding Harris' proposal “will accomplish nothing at best and cause great harm at worst.”

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

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The Harris team first announced the federal corporate price-fixing plan on Wednesday. Harris said she would empower the Federal Trade Commission to impose “tough penalties” on companies that set excessive prices for food and groceries.

Some left-leaning economists and financial experts reacted skeptically to the news, including Rampell, who wrote a scathing op-ed in the Washington Post on Thursday.

“It's hard to overstate how bad this policy is. It is, in all but name, a comprehensive set of government-enforced price controls on all industries, not just food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. That would be done by far-away bureaucrats in Washington. The FTC could tell a Kroger in Ohio, for example, what an acceptable price it could charge for milk,” Rampell wrote.