“Biden and Khan may care about their legacy, but the die was cast long ago on both. The history books won’t be kind to either.”
WASHINGTON – In a new op-ed for RealClearMarkets, Competitiveness Coalition Chair Scott Brown looks back on the disastrous tenure of now-former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan and the negative effects of her ideological agenda on American competitiveness and innovation, particularly in the technology space.
“From Meta to Amazon to even grocery stores like Kroger and Albertsons, size and success were viewed as inherent negatives and in need of immediate attention from regulators,” writes Brown, a former U.S. Senator and Ambassador. “Their zealous overreach occurred when China was nipping at the heels of American innovation, and even surpassing it in certain areas. As AI-related national security threats grew, Khan and her commission turned their ire not toward foreign adversaries, but toward homegrown success stories, pursuing an investigation that involved ‘compulsory orders’ to five U.S. tech companies regarding their investments in AI.”
Brown continued by emphasizing the negative economic effects of Khan’s tenure, which led to job losses and added fuel to the fire of the inflation crisis: “Khan peddled the ridiculous and false narrative that private sector companies were to blame for inflation when it was the Biden Administration’s surge in spending. And consider the FTC’s role in the collapse of the proposed merger between Amazon and iRobot that led to 350 American jobs needlessly lost. Press reports indicated the FTC was poised to reject the iRobot-Amazon deal before the companies scrapped the merger.”
Lastly, Brown highlights that “the Biden-Khan FTC morphed into a nakedly political entity. This once independent agency, who for its century-long existence operated behind the scenes protecting the American consumer and promoting competition, became a vehicle for progressives to rewrite the fundamental rules of the economy.”
Read the full piece here.
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The Competitiveness Coalition is a first-of-its-kind group educating the public and advocating for policies that put consumers first while fostering innovation and attracting new investment.