Bipartisan Progress in Antitrust Reform
As more voices speak out against the monopolization of Big Tech, we are hopeful that lawmakers will start to listen and take definitive action.
On September 2, nearly 40 nonprofit organizations sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on the issue of antitrust reform legislation. The letter encouraged them to pass a package of six bills, which were developed by the House Judiciary Committee and designed to make it easier to break up large tech companies and bolster government enforcement of antitrust issues.
In the letter, the groups, led by Public Citizen and Accountable Tech write, “America has a monopoly problem. Monopoly power lowers wages, reduces innovation and entrepreneurship, exacerbates income and regional inequality, undermines the free press and access to information, and perpetuates toxic systems of racial, gender, and class dominance. Big Tech monopolies are at the center of many of these problems. Reining in these companies is an essential first step to reverse the damage of concentrated corporate power throughout our economy. The bills that passed out of the House Judiciary Committee, with bipartisan support, do just that and it is imperative that they move forward in the House.”
A few key items that this legislation package addresses are:
· Prohibiting dominant Big Tech platforms from anticompetitive discrimination, self -referencing
· Giving government enforcers the ability to sue to break-up or separate certain parts of the businesses that create conflicts of interest
· Preventing “the most problematic” mergers and acquisitions
· Authorize funding for antitrust enforcement agencies
As this legislation package reflects, antitrust reform is not a matter that should rest on one side of the party line — it is a bipartisan issue. The monopolistic state of Big Tech affects all Americans, and we all have a vested interest in ensuring that the best interest of the customer is prioritized, rather than the profits of these companies.
Centrist Democrats of America has been calling for antitrust reform for the past year, and while Big Tech might be the shiny object, we must ensure that antitrust enforcement takes place in all sectors, most notably the defense and agriculture sectors. That is why last week we wrote a letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks calling for her to reject the potential acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne by Lockheed Martin.
We support these nonprofits and the bipartisan conversations taking place in Congress as they fight for a change in the antitrust environment.
