Washington, D.C. 07/29/2022 – A new piece in Forbes by former Senior Economist for the United States Treasury and Congress Ike Brannon outlines how the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA), a bill that targets our country’s most successful companies, would weaken the economy, stifle innovation, and hurt small businesses and startups.
The recently-released GDP estimates revealed that the economy contracted for the second quarter in a row, and some economists fear that we may already be in a recession. Given the precarious nature of the economy, recently proposed legislation intended to throttle the “Big Tech” companies seems singularly ill-timed, given that the bill would almost surely make life harder for tech startups and otherwise harm the innovation economy…
…While members of Congress push an anti-tech agenda like (the) American Innovation and Choice Online Act and other legislation, researchers have been measuring the potential side effects from turning these bills into law. For example, research by Dartmouth economist John T. Scott estimates that the harm to sales by U.S. small business retailers resulting from the implementation of AICOA would approach $500 billion over five years, or the equivalent to a new 5.2% “tax” on small business sales…
…But the harm from the legislation would go beyond typical “main street” small businesses that depend on these platforms to sell goods; a new study by economists Cameron Miller and Liad Wagman finds that tech startups would also be impacted. Increasing their costs might be even more damaging to the U.S. economy, given how important this sector is for job creation, innovation and American competitiveness…
Read the piece in full here.
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