ILSR and Small Business Rising coalition members, representing over 130,000 businesses across the country, submitted letters to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation supporting Lina Khan’s nomination to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Both letters urge Chair Cantwell and Ranking Member Wicker to lead the members of the committee in a swift confirmation process.
Corporate concentration has reached a level today not seen since before the Great Depression, when industrial monopolies dominated the American landscape and the American economy. We’ve lost 65,000 small independent retailers in the last decade. Walmart accounts for one in four dollars that Americans spend on groceries. One in three local banks has disappeared over the last ten years, leaving one-third of U.S. counties without a local financial institution. Two telecom corporations dominate Internet access. Meanwhile, Amazon, Google, and Facebook have become powerful online gatekeepers that control a growing share of our commerce, news, and information. This is because, for decades, policymakers have allowed powerful corporations to consolidate markets and rig the rules in their own favor.
Ms. Khan is well-qualified to help reinvigorate the FTC at a time when the agency’s enforcement authority is critically important to addressing market power problems and restoring competition. Furthermore, she’s an obvious choice to join the FTC because of her deep expertise in antitrust law, extensive government and policymaking experience, commitment to fostering an entrepreneurial, equitable, and prosperous economy, and deep knowledge of the ways concentration has undermined dynamism and new business formation.
Ms. Khan’s nomination, and swift confirmation, signal a new era for the FTC and antimonopoly policy.
Photo Credit: New York Times
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