WASHINGTON—Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a subcommittee hearing on antitrust and tech policy. The “Consumer Welfare Standard” is the beacon of antitrust policymaking in America that has allowed our entrepreneurs to innovate and thrive, both domestically and internationally. We should continue to uphold that gold standard.
“President Trump has been committed to ushering in a Golden Age for America by cutting red tape and ending bureaucrats’ heavy-handed control of entrepreneurs in this country. In antitrust, the focus on consumer welfare—not bureaucrat welfare—has allowed innovators to thrive. Dismantling this framework was a goal of Biden’s progressive administrators, and it had negative consequences for investment and entrepreneurialism across the U.S.,” said Amy Bos, NetChoice Director of State & Federal Affairs. “The committee should follow President Trump’s lead and reject progressive, Biden-era moves for heavy-handed government control of American life.”
The consumer welfare standard is a straightforward and objective framework used by federal courts: antitrust law can only be used to remedy demonstrable occurrences of consumer harm by a business abusing its market power.
However, President Biden’s bureaucrats undertook a radical agenda to dismantle this standard and stymie American innovation. By trying to punish successful companies that have earned their place by meeting consumer needs, his regulators substituted their personal ideological preferences for the preferences that matter most—American consumers.
NetChoice hopes the subcommittee will follow President Trump’s lead and put American consumers back where they belong: at the center of antitrust analysis and enforcement.
Please contact press@netchoice.org with inquiries.