Op-Ed: Senator Durbin's fight for economic fairness
To the editor:
Like millions of Americans, I watched President Joe Biden's address to the Congress, and was pleased to hear him speak extensively about economic fairness and justice for the American worker. Before and since the pandemic, it is obvious that too many people in this nation are being left behind, when it comes to access to wealth and good paying jobs.
Part of the problem, is that fewer and fewer people are controlling more and more of the wealth. The top one percent of Americans "now account for about 20% of the country's total income annually." As President Biden highlighted in his speech: "20 million Americans lost their jobs in the pandemic – working- and middle-class Americans. At the same time, the roughly 650 Billionaires in America saw their net worth increase by more than $1 Trillion."
Thankfully, one of Illinois' leaders is in position to do something about this terrible problem of income disparity.
Senator Richard Durbin has climbed to the ranks in Congress, and is Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and remains a long-time member of Democratic Leadership in the Senate. From his Chairmanship role on the committee that oversees our laws, Senator Durbin is in position to help restore economic fairness in the U.S., by pushing for stronger antitrust laws.
The first antitrust law, known as the Sherman Act, was enacted in 1890, by the Congress, and was a response to giant corporations that had too much power. These companies controlled whole segments of the economy, and used their dominance to drive down wages and overcharge customers. In 1911, Standard Oil was broken up using The Sherman Act, ending on of the worst examples of consolidation.
Today, consolidation across numerous industries is creating fewer choices for consumers, and giving companies more power to dictate prices. Google, Amazon, and Facebook control what we see online, what we buy, and how we interact on social media.
In Southern Illinois where we live, consolidation is siphoning out profits from farmers and livestock producers. According to the National Farmers Union (NFU): "Just four firms control 88 percent of corn seeds and 80 percent of soybean seeds." The same American farmers planting those seeds must then turn around and sell their products to only four companies that process more than 85% of those commodities.
A group I recently helped launch, the Centrist Democrats of America, has also been urging lawmakers to take a look at consolidation in the defense industry. My colleague Hank Naughton, an U.S. Army veteran of multiple deployments, and a long-time state lawmaker, penned an op-ed calling out Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in the world, for trying to purchase a company called Aerojet Rocketdyne. This will also
If Lockheed is successful, the company would likely be able to dominate the missile industry, and hurt Boeing, an Illinois based company that competes with Lockheed. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is now investigating past anti-competitive actions by Lockheed, that in fact, hurt Boeing. This proposed acquisition would also result in rising costs for the Pentagon. Anyone who has ever studied our defense spending, which accounts for about 16% of our national budget, knows that it's bloated and waste is widespread. The federal government must take more – not fewer – precautions to ensure the American taxpayer is not being ripped off by defense contractors.
Whether we see consolidation in Big Tech, Big Ag, or Big Defense – it all results in bad outcomes for the consumer, the economy and often the American taxpayer. As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Senator Durbin is positioned to make a real difference for economic fairness by challenging unfair and unchecked consolidation across too many business sectors.
David Phelps served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1984 to 1998, and represented portions of Southern Illinois in the United States Congress from 1998 to 2003, serving on both the Small Business and Agriculture Committees.