Another Poll Shows Americans Do Not Care About Antitrust

The Trafalgar Group has released a poll that continues a string of data that shows just how little Americans truly care about antitrust reform. The poll ought to send a clear message to legislators that they ought to focus on bread-and-butter issues, rather than waste their time solving a nonexistent problem. 

When respondents were asked about the most important issue to them, 36.8% of them said inflation. As inflation rates are at a 40-year high, it is not a surprise that voters are concerned about the increasing costs of goods and services. These results parallel a recent Gallup poll which showed that over 50% Americans are most concerned about inflation. However, the Trafalgar Group poll showed that only 0.1% of Americans were most concerned about the state of our antitrust laws. In the Gallup poll, the issue did not even track.

It remains particularly concerning that lawmakers have insisted upon continuing to push radical reforms to our antitrust laws despite so few Americans wanting Congress to focus on that issue. Instead, Americans want legislators to work on bringing down the costs of goods and services. The biggest irony here is that the efforts of Senator Amy Klobuchar [D-Minn] and her congressional colleagues to reform our antitrust laws may very well exacerbate inflation. Former Obama Administration National Economic Council Director Larry Summers criticized the “non-analytic” approach that the Biden Administration has taken to constructing antitrust policy, particularly warning that it could “easily have inflationary effects.” Lawmakers are risking the worsening of the consistently most pressing issue on the minds of voters to fix a problem that does not concern voters whatsoever.

Legislators need to listen to voters. They are consistently expressing a desire for them to tackle inflation, while saying little regarding the reform of our antitrust laws. Instead of making inflation an even more pressing issue for Americans, legislators need to avoid risking more economic devastation through their efforts to fix sound structures.