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April 19, 2023

KJ Boyle Andrea Beaty Emma Marsano

Newsletter

Anti-MonopolyConsumer ProtectionDepartment of JusticeFTCGovernment CapacityIndependent Agencies

To Reverse Decades Of Neglect, Antitrust Agencies Need Robust Budgets

The FTC and the DOJ are still dealing with a deluge of corporate mergers, and still only have capabilities to challenge a handful of those actions each year. Restoring competition in the U.S. economy will require much more than slight increases in funding — these government agencies need monumental budgets to take on entrenched monopolies that have flourished with decades of lax enforcement.

March 01, 2023 | The American Prospect

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed

ClimateConsumer ProtectionCorporate CrackdownExecutive BranchGovernanceGovernment Capacity

Calling Deficit Squawks’ Bluff on Environmental Enforcement

A 38-car train wreck. Toxic chemicals seeping into water and soil, and a black plume rising in the sky. Sick people, sick pets. As the Prospect’s Jarod Facundo wrote last week, the national spotlight remains fixed on the ecological consequences of the February 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.

In the context of this ecological disaster, arguing for a reduced budget for federal investigators, air and water quality testing, and programs that hold polluting corporations accountable for proper cleanup and restitution is sheer madness. But that’s exactly what the current right-wing push for massive government spending cuts in the name of deficit reduction would entail.

February 09, 2023 | The Sling

Andrea Beaty KJ Boyle

Op-Ed

Anti-MonopolyConsumer ProtectionDepartment of JusticeFTCIndependent Agencies

In Competition and Consumer Protection, The FTC Needs More Funding To Give Economic Power Back To Americans

Congressional Democrats managed to pass a few crucial measures during December’s lame duck session. One tiny fraction of the omnibus bill to fund the government was the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, a measure for which anti-monopoly advocates have long been pushing. And beyond the DOJ Antitrust and FTC’s edict to enforce competition, the FTC has another underfunded but crucial mission: consumer protection.