Proposed Antitrust Legislation Threatens To Harm US Tech Startups And The Innovation Economy

By Ike Brannon, Forbes

The recently-released GDP estimates revealed that the economy contracted for the second quarter in a row, and some economists fear that we may already be in a recession. Given the precarious nature of the economy, recently proposed legislation intended to throttle the “Big Tech” companies seems singularly ill-timed, given that the bill would almost surely make life harder for tech startups and otherwise harm the innovation economy.

The head of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, has embraced a neo-Brandeisian antitrust model that eschews the notion that a merger, a market, or the size of a firm be judged solely on its impact on prices and consumer welfare. In its place is a determination to constrain big companies simply because being big is, in itself, harmful. This alternative economic approach has its adherents in Congress as well: for instance, Senator Amy Klobucher’s S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act would essentially enact Khan’s agenda and damage the U.S. economy.

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