The latest example of bipartisan collaboration actually being bad for the public comes courtesy of Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley. They are pushing new antitrust legislation to break up, regulate, or restructure businesses. They are specifically targeting Big Tech platforms, including Amazon.
This week, something of an intra-GOP debate has broken out as free-market, limited government Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul have spoken out against GOP support for this Democratic, big-government policy approach. “These [antitrust] proposals to ostensibly cut the tech giants down to size would, instead, perpetuate the dominant position of these companies and deprive consumers of the technological innovation that only free-market competition can provide,” Paul said. “Rather than pursue even stronger antitrust laws, Congress should allow the free market to thrive where consumers, not the government, decide how big a company should be.”
Free-market Republicans like Paul are right on this one. Big-government populists like Hawley are wrong.
A great example of why these swampy, big-government policies are so misguided is Klobuchar and Hawley’s “American Innovation and Choice Online Act.” This bill is ostensibly meant to crack down on big companies like Amazon that are said to be using their market power to promote themselves and squash competitors. It acts by “prohibiting dominant platforms from abusing their gatekeeper power by favoring their own products or services, disadvantaging rivals, or discriminating among businesses that use their platforms in a manner that would materially harm competition on the platform.”
All the populist bravado aside, what this legislation would actually do is use the federal government to ruin amazing services people enjoy, such as Amazon Basics and Amazon Prime. Amazon Basics is the line of cheap everyday products — phone chargers, for example — that comes up at the top of search results on Amazon. That preferential positioning is because these products are made by Amazon and sold on its platform. Because this “vertical integration” cuts out a middle man, Amazon Basics prices are often much lower than their competitors — a boon to people struggling amid inflation.
This system is going to be illegal if the antitrust Karens in Congress get their way.
So, too, would Amazon Prime, where Amazon offers a wide array of other services that aren’t available to non-Prime members. Free giveaways or promotions, such as when a company launches a new platform or service and wants to give existing subscribers on their current platforms a discount, would similarly be prohibited. And good luck to companies like Netflix that both create and stream TV shows and want to promote their own content on their platform.
All this dysfunction incurred while achieving what, exactly?
Hawley and Klobuchar explicitly reject the old standard of “consumer welfare,” only using antitrust when consumers are directly being harmed. Now, they want to replace it and start inserting the government into things just in the abstract name of more competition, even if consumers are thriving under the status quo.
We expect Democrats to push silly, big-government policies that mess up the market. They’re always down to allow federal bureaucrats — not exactly known for their flexibility and competence — to hamstring innovation that would otherwise be a boon for consumers. But Republicans are supposed to know better. At least, in theory. How any conservative could want to empower federal bureaucrats further is beyond me. Remember, the feds have just in the last year investigated upset parents as a “domestic terrorism threat” and tried to start a “disinformation board” targeting right-wing speech. Why does Josh Hawley want to give people who hate conservatives more power over our lives?
Republican lawmakers going down this path desperately need a course correction.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a co-founder of Based-Politics.com, a co-host of the BasedPolitics podcast, and a Washington Examiner contributor.
