 Senator Elizabeth Warren |
For the latest evidence that big-government, anti-business sentiment is spreading from the Elizabeth Warren Democratic left to the Republican Party, check out the joint op-ed in the New York Times from Senators Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren promoting their new "Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act," which would "create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation's biggest tech companies — like Meta, Google and Amazon — to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans' privacy and protect national security."
The text of the Act or even a summary isn't showing up, at least this morning, on either Senator's websites or on the Senate.gov site, so it's hard to analyze the proposal with any specificity. My general view is that the federal government is so big and intrusive that the senators should be working on pruning back and eliminating existing agencies, rather than creating new one.
I don't think the Big Tech companies should be above the law, and I share some of the senators' concerns about the power of these companies and how they have used it. But the tone of the op-ed suggests that part of the problem the senators have with the tech companies is that they make money: "These massive businesses post eye-popping profits..." Would the senators be happier if the tech companies were posting eye-popping losses? The only profits that Senator Warren and her fellow Democrats don't oppose are the ones of trial lawyers; the "redress" that the senators refer to in their op-ed suggests the bill might be better named the Trial Lawyer Enrichment Act.
Anyway, once the bill is public, it'll be interesting to see which, if any, other Republicans Senator Graham brings along.
