Big Tech’s Management Plan – The American Prospect

If you’ve been following our DNC coverage this week, you know I’ve been documenting the difficulties the press has had trying to get access to events in a city where all sorts of corporate organizations are plotting and scheming. But Perspective had a peek inside several of those secret meetings, including a panel hosted at the Business Forward newsroom by the technology trade group Chamber of Progress. The chamber is the Washington lobbying and political operations hub for Big Tech, representing Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook, which the Biden administration’s antitrust enforcers have sued for violating competition laws.

Like other C-suite wishers, notably LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, the Chamber is hoping to steer Vice President Harris in a new, more corporate-friendly direction. Some early signs suggested that putting Harris at the top of the ticket instead of Biden could secure a spot for Big Tech. Harris’ brother-in-law, Tony West, who remains a close adviser to her campaign and spoke at the convention Wednesday night, is Uber’s top lawyer, whom the Chamber of Progress has periodically kept as a client.

But Harris’s economic platform launch last week indicated that her administration would not be entirely willing to roll back the Biden-era approach to corporate power. Essentially, her platform calls for expanding federal powers to crack down on grocery price gouging and increasing antitrust enforcement, among a handful of other populist policies. But technology was conspicuously absent from the policy’s execution.

More from Luke Goldstein

The Chamber of Progress has clearly taken note of Harris’s position on corporate malfeasance and intends to oppose it. The panel featured partner Adam Kovacevich and was co-hosted by the New Democrats, a moderate centrist coalition in the House of Representatives.

The discussion was largely based on the points raised in the political strategy document distributed at the event and obtained by Perspectivetitled “The Democratic Cost of Living Agenda.” It essentially outlines how the lobbying group wants Democrats to lower costs in the economy, a nearly universal goal across the political spectrum. The specific strategy they want Democrats to pursue to achieve that, however, contradicts recent policies put forth by the Harris campaign.

For example, the House handbook’s introductory section lists points that play down the role of concentrated market power in raising prices during inflation, a basic view that motivates Harris’s proposal to ban price gouging. “Corporate greed is a minor factor,” the document says. “Subsidizing demand drives prices up even more.”

Another area where the House is well-positioned to the right of most mainstream Democrats is taxes, which will be a major political fight in Congress next year when the Trump tax cuts expire. “Avoid raising taxes with zero- and low-cost solutions,” the House says in its “Key Policies” section. That may be convenient for the House’s clients, but it runs counter to Harris’ stated campaign goals. Just this week, her campaign said it would support the Biden White House’s proposal this spring for $5 trillion in tax increases on wealthy Americans earning more than $400,000 a year and large companies.

Overall, the document has a few major concerns. One is making housing more affordable by changing local zoning laws that have been holding back more housing construction and development. That’s pretty consistent with an emerging consensus among Democrats. Harris has proposed both easing restrictions on developers and providing relief to first-time homebuyers, up to $25,000 in subsidies.

Housing policy is the centerpiece of a particular worldview promoted by the House, to the extent that there is a coherent philosophy beyond a list of business wishes. The document mirrors a project released by the House this spring called “The Abundance and Affordability Project.” Those policy recommendations evangelize a supply-side approach that posits that regulatory constraints on businesses are responsible for the affordability problems that frustrate most Americans. Cutting red tape will lower costs, the House argues, while demand-side subsidies, often favored by progressives, will only make the problems worse.

This view largely ignores the market power of monopolies that restrict production capacity in order to raise prices. In some cases, however, the House recognizes that competition is necessary. To fix the exorbitant costs of health care for Americans, the House in this document actually advocates for “more funding for antitrust enforcement in hospital systems.” It remains to be seen whether the House will actually use its lobbying power to extend funding to the same enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department that go after their own technology customers.

In the “competition” section, the House blames protective tariffs for rising costs for consumers. Tariffs are among the Biden administration’s favored industrial policies across sectors of the economy to help grow the nation’s manufacturing base. Harris has yet to unveil a full tariff plan, though she has criticized Trump’s proposed tariff increases across the board. (During the DNC, Biden’s U.S. trade representative, Katherine Tai, said Harris is a “warrior” on trade who could be expected to pursue a worker-focused agenda.)

Trade is just one of the inherent tensions between the idea of ​​abundance and the interests of organized labor, which often favor some protections for domestic production.

One way to address the affordability crisis identified by the House is to focus on raising workers’ wages through higher minimum wages and more unions. But when it comes to education, for example, the House opts to simply “consider a modest relaxation of the child-to-teacher ratio.” Raising wages to attract talent is completely absent. In general, the House’s preferred tactic is to lift supply constraints on labor markets, such as cutting “occupational licensing standards” for professions ranging from doctors to airline pilots.

But some of these proposals are simply defenses of the interests of House clients. There’s a section on embracing innovative technologies that urges Democrats to “encourage innovation in vehicles by making the rules neutral for human-driven and autonomous vehicles.” Tech companies like Google and Apple are at the forefront of experimenting with autonomous vehicles.

The House’s influence-peddling practice is typical of the DNC’s internal gamesmanship designed to persuade party leaders to adopt the policies preferred by their clients.