When the federal government intervenes in the economy, it regularly accrues to the benefit of Big Business and to the detriment of smaller competitors and taxpayers.

That’s the story with the Biden administration’s latest antitrust action, which successfully blocked the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines. If the two of them had combined, they would have become the fifth-largest airline and still be much smaller than any of the big four airlines — Delta, American, United, and Southwest.