Corporate lobbyists are freaking out

 

President Biden just announced a sweeping executive order to protect consumers and workers against some of the most egregious abuses of corporate power—policies that progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter have been advocating for years. Cheaper generic prescription drugs. The right to repair your own iPhone. Refunds when a product or service doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. Who could possibly be against this stuff? The corporations profiting from these rip-offs, that’s who. The right wing is already launching an all-out campaign to strangle President Biden’s executive order in the crib, scaremongering about an “unbounded regulatory state” and the “creeping socialism.” We need to fight just as hard against the corporate lobbyists who are hell-bent on killing these consumer protections. President Biden’s executive order includes 72 specific initiatives that are so common-sense you won’t believe they aren’t already the law of the land. Here’s just a sample of what’s included:1 Make it easier for generic drugmakers in Canada to sell in the U.S., lowering barriers that cost the American health-care system billions every year.2 Allow restaurant workers and others to change jobs when they get a better offer, instead of allowing exploitative “noncompete agreements” to lock them into bad jobs. Ensure that everyone from farmers to iPhone owners can repair our own stuff when it breaks, rather than requiring us to bring it back to the manufacturer. Stop the anticompetitive practices that allow Big Tech giants like Amazon and Facebook to kill off small businesses and startups, including reinstating net neutrality. The best part is that the Biden administration has the power to do all of this on their own. Mitch McConnell can’t do a darn thing about it, if the Biden administration has the courage to follow through. But each one of these ideas must go through a detailed rulemaking process, and with an army of corporate lobbyists gearing up to kill or weaken virtually every single one of them, we can’t just sit back and assume it will happen. We can’t let this historic chance to crack down on corporate power slip away. Please donate today and help fight back against the corporate lobbyists who are trying to kill Biden’s executive order. Thanks for standing with us. Robert Cruickshank, Demand Progress Sources: 1. The White House, "FACT SHEET: Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy," July 9, 2021. 2. Federal Trade Commission, "Pay for Delay," accessed July 15, 2021 PAID FOR BY DEMAND PROGRESS (DemandProgress.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Join our online community on Facebook or Twitter.