The Federal Trade Commission under Chairwoman Lina Khan is out of line and in need of new leadership. The FTC is being run by left-wing ideologues who challenge every corporate merger and want to use antitrust law to break up America’s most successful companies. The Biden administration should recognize that this government agency is treating companies as if they are presumed guilty of commerce crimes and have to prove their innocence.

The most recent example of FTC overreach is the case of Amazon. Politico reported on July 25 that “the Federal Trade Commission is finalizing its long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Amazon … a move that could ultimately break up parts of the company.”

Amazon is an amazing company for consumers and one that is helping to keep a struggling economy afloat. It makes no sense that the federal government would seek to punish a successful company that has proven to improve the lives of all citizens for the crime of being large and successful.

The FTC has also looked skeptically on recent advances in technology, claiming to be concerned that advances could facilitate more fraud. CBS News reported on July 27, “Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is leading the Biden administration's charge against massive tech companies allegedly looking to gobble up the competition. One area Khan is focused on is artificial intelligence, which she believes is an emerging threat to the American consumer.” Khan claims that AI will be used to make fraud and scams worse, yet the FTC is seeking to blame big companies rather than the actual scammers for the fraud.

These are merely two examples of fearmongering and overreach by the FTC that show how one unelected bureaucrat in the federal government can impose a distorted view of market fairness on our biggest and most successful companies.

Some in Congress recognize the threat Khan poses to our economy. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) stated in a House Oversight Committee hearing on July 13 that “she’s trying to usher in a radical departure from the norms that made the American economy great to a system where her and her cronies have unchecked power over business practices in our country, untethered from any reasonable reading of precedent or statutory law.”

I would rather our best and brightest in the private sector make these decisions over the "woke" bureaucrats at the FTC who want to sabotage corporate success.

Facebook is another target of the FTC. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) pointed out that Khan had made biased statements about Meta, Facebook’s parent company, before her tenure and now the FTC is pushing to stop Meta’s purchase of virtual reality developer Within. Khan is hostile to all mergers and acquisitions in general, but her pointed statements in the past toward many bigger tech companies should force her to be recused from using government power to make these companies less efficient and less likely to become economies of scale.

Back in 2022, the Chamber of Commerce conducted a deep-dive study of the FTC and led a coalition letter of groups that urged the commission to recognize that most mergers promote competition. They argued that some mergers are good, whereas the FTC takes the default position that all mergers are bad. This socialist view of private enterprise allows the FTC, and Khan in particular, a de facto seat on the board of directors of every major large corporation, which ends up making the corporation less efficient.

Federal government control of private enterprise is currently one of the biggest dangers to the U.S. economy because of the FTC’s interventionist activities. Our biggest corporations should be supported by government, not treated as if they are fraudsters who are doing something wrong.

Our free market system is the envy of the world, yet it seems we are sliding slowly toward a European style of creeping socialism that will send our economy into a death spiral. Add in the federal government’s $33 trillion in debt, and you have a government that is far more of a danger to the economy than Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

Brian Darling is former counsel to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).