From stopping the spread of a global pandemic to mitigating its effect on supply chain issues and rising inflation, Congress has an unusually full plate. For voters, these are all important problems for Congress to address, and they rightfully expect that their representatives in DC are working on them. The numbers bear this out in a recent poll of California voters — who tend to support regulation more than other parts of the country — showing that the two issues they are most concerned about are rising prices and inflation, at 62 percent and 55 percent respectively, while regulation of tech companies was ranked dead last at 28 percent.
And yet with all this to consider, Congress finds itself kicking into overdrive on an effort to make it easier to bring antitrust lawsuits against tech platforms, potentially exacerbating inflation, destabilizing digital security and further undermining the economic recovery. With limited floor time available in Congress, this diverts away from the core economic issues that will bring voters to the polls in November. As the Senate Judiciary Committee speeds towards a vote on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S. 2992), small businesses and consumers alike are raising a different alarm as loudly as possible. Because if it stays on track, it runs headlong into taking small app makers, cybersecurity, consumer privacy, and our uneven economic recovery amid a global pandemic off course.
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