TPA Reacts to JCPA Markup

For Immediate Release                                                                             Contact: Abigail Graham: (202) 417-7235

September 8, 2022                                                                                                                        

Washington, D.C. – Following today’s markup of the ‘Journalism Competition and Preservation Act’ (JCPA) by the Senate Judiciary, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is pleased to see a bill pulled that would ultimately hurt American consumers.  

TPA Executive Director, Patrick Hedger, offered the following statement:

“The JCPA represents all the problems with the government’s antitrust approach to ‘big tech.’ There is a concerted effort to use antitrust law to achieve political outcomes that are outside the scope of competition policy.

“Ignoring the obvious First Amendment problems of the government favoring some speech over others, what the JCPA markup hearing laid bare (and why it ultimately failed), is that the political outcomes both parties are trying to achieve when it comes to big tech and speech are lightyears apart.

“This problem exists with both the Open App Markets Act and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, awaiting votes on the Senate floor. Both bills are designed to give the party in power the ability to bully major tech companies into political compliance. That’s a terrible deal for not just both parties, but also the American people concerned with maintaining secure, low cost and even free products and services provided by America’s world-leading tech sector.”

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Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy.