FTC Wants MORE MONEY To Punish Companies!

(USNewsMag.com) – The FTC sought a 37% budget increase for 2024. This would be the FTC’s largest budget increase. With the FTC’s Lina Khan’s belief that big is bad, numerous experts anticipate that this increased funding will lead to additional regulation, litigation, and investigations that target huge corporations with no regard for consumer welfare.

The budget for the FTC would rise to $590 million, enabling 1,690 full-time hires. New hires target corporations for being too big, challenging the forty years of agreement regarding the consumer welfare test that focuses on widespread, systematic, or catastrophic damage.

Khan has always maintained that big business is a monopoly. She thinks firm size determines anti-competitive lawsuits. Antitrust law depends on a company’s size.

The FTC’s attempts to go against big businesses have often failed because of these competing standards. Khan seems unfazed by her past setbacks. She plans to pursue anti-competitive claims in the hopes that the legal system or Congress will be pressured into acting.

This admission lends credence to claims made by certain Republican legislative opponents of Khan’s FTC. They have said that the commission has become an activist agency that cares little about what is best for consumers.

Chairman of the FTC In 2019, Joe Simons, warned Congress that giving the agency more power to make rules might lead to a process of politics. He argued that regulations should not change over time.

The most significant institutions in American society will be inefficient due to concerns about mergers, customer complaints, and legal action. Customers who are looking for the best value for their money will end up footing the cost of the activist overreach of the FTC. The FTC’s proposed budget increase of $160 million would be paid for by the United States taxpayers, who will again be hit as consumers of the companies the FTC targets. Companies will have to cover the expenses of more costly and frequent litigation, which will lead to price increases for consumers.