PPI Statement on House Judiciary Committee Markup of Anti-Innovation Bills

By PPI Press

This morning, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up a series of antitrust bills that, taken together, would stifle digital innovation and hinder the United States in economic competition with China.

Alec Stapp, Director of Technology Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released the following statement:

“Economic concentration in many sectors of the U.S. economy is a serious issue that demands scrutiny and creative responses from lawmakers. Unfortunately these five bills fail to grapple responsibly with this challenge. Instead, they single out a handful of America’s most innovative and globally competitive tech companies for divestiture and draconian regulation. These bills would be a major blow to job creation and innovation even as our economy struggles to recover from the pandemic recession.

“We hope the Members of the House Judiciary Committee will stand up for American workers, consumers and entrepreneurs by refusing to join in an ideological crusade to dismantle “big tech.” While well-tailored regulation is certainly worth debating, the extreme provisions written into these bills would do more harm than good, and set us back in our fight against foreign dominance in the tech/e-commerce industry.”

Earlier this year, PPI released a new report on job growth in the tech/e-commerce sector, which found that this sector is now the top job creator in the U.S. economy. The sector generated more than 1.2 million net new jobs from 2016 to 2020, including during the pandemic. On average, pay in the tech/e-commerce ecosystem was 44% higher than average pay in the private sector and 21% higher than average pay in manufacturing nationally. The report also found that the growth of tech/e-commerce jobs has expanded beyond the coasts and regions known as tech innovation hot spots, including growth during the pandemic in Arizona, Ohio, Texas, Indiana, and Florida.