President
Joe Biden’s
economic philosophy, commonly described as “Bidenomics,” consists of taxing or banning things you want and subsidizing things that are of no interest to you. For just one example, Democrats want to tax your energy use to subsidize electric vehicles for your rich neighbors.
Bidenomics also includes spending so much of other people’s money that inflation steals
17%
of the value of every dollar in your pocket. If you have not received more than a 17% pay increase during the Biden presidency, you are poorer today than when he was elected. And when taxes and inflation have eaten away at your life savings, paycheck, and daily life, the Biden administration has added
more than $400 billion
in regulatory costs to the products and services you use every day. There’s more.
EXISTING HOME SALES FALL TO LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 2010 AS HIGH MORTGAGE RATES FREEZE MARKET
We also have the added burden of Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman
Lina Khan
, the avatar of Bidenomics. Khan believes that America’s antitrust laws should not focus on protecting consumers — instead, Khan believes regulators should disregard consumer welfare and sue businesses large and small whenever they wish and for any reason. Khan’s appointment typifies the Biden approach to nominees – being committed to far-left economic ideology is far more important than being qualified for the job at hand. In a recent
keynote
, Khan said the government does not do enough to shape “economic outcomes” and called for using antitrust to do so via government and legal “intervention.”
Throughout her tenure, Khan has weaponized her agency to increase government control over the economy. Khan
ripped up
the FTC’s vertical merger guidelines, increasing uncertainty for companies looking to merge or acquire another business. Khan has sent
threatening letters
to companies warning them against consummating deals without her permission. Khan has wasted immeasurable taxpayer resources launching frivolous antitrust lawsuits that fail in court.
Khan’s recent case against Amazon is the latest example of her weaponizing the FTC to fulfill a political agenda. Khan became famous in left-wing circles with
a paper
she wrote in law school arguing for the federal dismantlement of online retailer Amazon. Now, Khan has sued Amazon for being a supposed “monopoly” in the bureaucrat-invented “online superstore” market even though Amazon also competes with brick-and-mortar retailers.
This is not the first shot across the bow Khan’s FTC has taken at Amazon — in June, the agency
sued Amazon
, claiming that the retailer made it too difficult for consumers to cancel Amazon Prime memberships. The only problem? It may take six clicks to cancel a Prime membership, but it takes at least seven to file comments with the FTC. It likely takes more than six clicks for Khan to go to work given that she “runs the agency” remotely from New York.
So far, the courts have been the bulwark against Khan’s lawsuits. Despite Khan’s efforts to the contrary, judges still look to the consumer welfare standard when evaluating antitrust cases. If consumers are not being harmed through tangible effects like higher prices and reduced innovation, a company has not violated antitrust law.
While the larger Amazon case will likely play out over several years, the broader implications are clear. The Biden administration does not care about protecting consumers from their reckless tax-and-spend agenda. Instead of working to reduce the burden of generational inflation on families, they would rather try and dismantle a popular company for achieving success without government permission.
Bidenomics is a failure, and FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan is the chief architect of that failure. Instead of trying to reshape the economy through ill-fated lawsuits, the Biden administration should work to blunt the impact of Bidenomics on families.
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Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform.
