WASHINGTON—Today, NetChoice and more than a dozen free market organizations head to Capitol Hill to educate lawmakers on why consumers must be put back into the focus of antitrust policy.
America’s vibrant economy, innovation and success has allowed us to be the envy of the world. We’ve focused on ensuring that the needs of consumers are met and that their power and influence in the marketplace come first.
However, since President Joe Biden took office, his regulators have taken their focus off of protecting American consumers in favor of an ideological crusade against American business, innovation and success.
“The Biden administration’s ‘whole of government’ attack on vibrant U.S. innovation and competitiveness is both misguided and harmful to American consumers,” said Carl Szabo, Vice President & General Counsel of NetChoice. “From the FTC to the Justice Department and more, we’re witnessing a radical rewrite of policy that discards decades of balanced precedent. Antitrust law exists to protect competition, not punish competitors that are successful in meeting consumer needs and preferences.”
“The consumer welfare standard prevents antitrust law from being weaponized for partisan agendas or cronyism,” Szabo continued. “The path forward is simple: President Biden should immediately re-assert the consumer welfare standard at the heart of antitrust enforcement, and Congress should continue to use its critical oversight power to ensure agencies are putting Americans first.”
At the core of our educational efforts is the Biden administration’s abandonment of the consumer welfare standard, which properly focuses antitrust enforcement on when a business is causing demonstrable consumer harm. Instead, Biden’s regulators embraced an expansive and subjective interpretation of antitrust to punish successful businesses across various industries and discourage innovation, even when consumers are benefiting from such services.
American innovation and competitiveness will continue suffering severe, self-inflicted wounds from partisan overreach that blatantly disregards the needs of U.S. consumers and businesses. American consumers must be put back squarely at the center of antitrust policy.
Szabo concluded: “The American people deserve an antitrust agenda that vigorously safeguards free markets and innovation, not an ideological campaign to undermine U.S. competitiveness, both at home and abroad.”
Please contact Krista Chavez at press@netchoice.org with inquiries.
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