Ahead of President Joe Biden’s third State of the Union (SOTU) address, the White House announced the creation of a new strike force to crack down on “unfair and illegal pricing” by corporations.
On March 5, two days before the much-anticipated SOTU address, the White House announced it was launching a new, multi-agency Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing “to crack down on unfair and illegal pricing” and to ensure that “corporations are held accountable when they try to rip off Americans, including when they break the law while keeping prices high.”
“President Biden is laser-focused on lowering costs for hardworking Americans by taking action to end corporate rip-offs and other unfair practices that keep prices high,” the Fact Sheet states, adding that, “Under the President’s leadership, agencies across the Administration are working to promote competition, protect consumers, and lower prices” by implementing President Biden’s July 9, 2021, Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy.
The new Strike Force will be co-chaired by U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Jonathan Kanter, and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Lina Khan.
“This Strike Force will strengthen interagency efforts to root out and stop illegal corporate behavior that hikes prices on American families through anti-competitive, unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent business practices,” the fact sheet explains. “DOJ and FTC, along with other agencies on the Strike Force, will focus their collaborative efforts on key sectors where corporations may be violating the law and keeping prices high, including prescription drugs and health care, food and grocery, housing, financial services, and more.”
EJ Antoni, a Research Fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, whose research focuses on fiscal and monetary policy, says corporations are not the problem.
“Prices are not going up because of corporate greed,” he told The Epoch Times. “Prices are going up because the government spent, borrowed, and printed trillions of dollars it didn’t have. That’s what caused inflation.”
According to Mr. Antoni, the allegation that businesses are artificially raising prices and causing inflation “doesn’t pass the smell test.”
“All you have to do is look at the Biden administration’s own data,” he explained. “What you find is that over the last three years, prices paid by consumers have gone up about 18 percent and the prices that businesses pay have also gone up about 18 percent.”
“Prices for all items less food and energy increased 3.9 percent from January 2023 to January 2024, compared with increases of 5.6 percent in the year ended January 2023 and 6.0 percent for the year ended January 2022.”
That’s a total increase over the past three years of 18.6 percent.
“In other words,” Mr. Antoni explained, “all of the cost increases faced by businesses are just getting passed on to consumers, and that’s why when you look at corporate profits, if you adjust for inflation, they’re not doing that hot. In fact, a lot of them are down It’s just like with the average American family. Even though your paycheck might be larger than it was three years ago it buys about 4.5 percent less for the exact same reason.”
Mr. Antoni also believes that the decision to make this a focal point of President Biden’s State of the Union address is to “distract from the Biden administration’s failed economic record.”
“There’s a reason why the economic polling is so terrible today,” he said, adding that it’s not as if the majority of Americans are “making up the fact that they’re worse off than they were three years ago.”
The announcement comes just two days after lawmakers moved to slash the DOJ’s antitrust division budget as part of the stopgap measure passed by Congress on March 1.
On March 3, U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) released a “minibus” that includes a measure to cut $45 million from Mr. Kanter’s DOJ Antitrust Division.
Mr. Antoni suspects this is an effort to reign in the DOJ and its assault against businesses.
“The antitrust division in the Department of Justice has been running roughshod over American businesses,” Mr. Antoni said, noting the DOJ’s recent success in preventing the merger of Spirit Airlines and Jet Blue, which he suggests would have “benefitted consumers, especially consumers who use smaller airports that are not serviced as much or at all by the four big carriers.”
In a March 4 press release, the DOJ said, “JetBlue Airways Corporation (JetBlue) announced today that it has abandoned its $3.8 billion acquisition of Spirit Airlines Inc. (Spirit).”
“Today’s decision by JetBlue is yet another victory for the Justice Department’s work on behalf of American consumers,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said. “The Justice Department proved in court that a merger between JetBlue and Spirit would have caused tens of millions of travelers to face higher fares and fewer choices. We will continue to vigorously enforce the nation’s antitrust laws.”
Mr. Antoni noted that the DOJ’s victory will cause Americans to lose their jobs, shareholders to lose on their investments, and will likely cause Spirit Airlines to go bankrupt.
“What they are doing in the name of antitrust is ironically making things worse for the American consumer,” he said.
