Mar 13, 2023
Commentary The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established with massive bipartisan support in 1914 to fight monopolies. But under the Biden administration, this powerful government agency has become something like a police force favoring the most dangerous form of monopoly: that which prevents competition in free expression. Although there were differences on whether to regulate or force the break-up of large corporations, opposition to monopolies was a position shared by the nominees for president in 1912. Woodrow Wilson's Democratic Party platform wanted "to make it impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United States." William Howard Taft's Republican platform declared that "no part of the field of business opportunity may be restricted by monopoly"; and the new Progressive Party of former president Theodore Roosevelt, who came in second to Wilson and ahead of Taft that November, backed "the establishment of a strong federal administrat