Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022
Floor Speech
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, 5 minutes is not enough to go through each and every item that is wrong with this bill, so I am going to try to summarize, and some of it may be redundant.
The authors of this bill are the authors of at least three bills. They are the authors of very different bills, and, ultimately, we should be having a vote on three or more bills, as we did in committee.
You might ask, well, why aren't we? Usually, I don't want to talk about procedure, but there is a reason. They are trying to cram this thing and get a few more votes by putting a bill that is not objectionable with bills that are very objectionable.
A bill that doesn't grab more power with one that empowers two agencies that are under review for good cause. One of them has been trying to seize this very power. As we speak, the Federal Trade Commission has done virtually nothing to protect consumers in the areas it has jurisdiction on. They constantly say we don't have enough money for the job we already have. But they want to be able to control both before, during, and after mergers and acquisitions. They actually want to be able to and are trying to undo mergers that already have occurred.
So yes, there is an agency that is power hungry. Predominantly, my friends on the other side of the aisle want to give them money. Maybe not money in this bill because we are not appropriators, but it is still $140 million, and it will keep coming, and it will grow that agency.
I am going to ask the American people something here today, Mr. Speaker.
Have you received a call about your extended warranty?
Have you received a robocall from somebody you don't know, and it gets through on your personal phone or your cell phone?
Of course, you have. So has every American.
The Federal Trade Commission has an absolute obligation to seek that out and to prosecute that. And they are funded to do it, and they haven't done it. But, no, they want to get into mergers.
And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and some on my side of the aisle, hate a couple of Big Tech companies for their leftist leanings or whatever, on my side. And on the other side, I guess, because they are profitable. They hate them so much that they look past two truths.
One of them is--big tech, medium tech, small tech--they have made us the envy of the world, and we have delivered to the rest of the world a better set of economies when they adopt those very technologies.
And you ask, why do those technologies get adopted? Well, one of the reasons is a startup can be funded because they know they may have an exit that isn't even a normal one. It is going to be an exit by having one of these big companies buy them. Many companies' actual plan is to build something that is going to be bought by some large tech. And yet, we are considering changing the basis for mergers and acquisitions so that might no longer be possible.
Innovation could dry up. I was an innovator; I know what it is like as a small startup company to try to get those funds. And you know what, those funds come if they believe not that you might make a living and be around, but that your company might become valuable, that your idea might explode into the marketplace.
The American people see through this. Big tech, medium tech, and small tech. By the way, most of the Big Tech companies, none of them were around 50 years ago, and most of them weren't around 25 years ago. The fact is this is new tech that they are attacking. These are new technologies, and they are playing into the very hands of the people they claim to defend.
If you want to stifle innovation, vote for this. And by the way, going back to that first one, Mr. Speaker, why are we voting on three bills? The reason is they are trying to trick Members of Congress into voting. Please, vote ``no.'' Vote ``no'' because this is a bad set of multiple bills, and I intend on making sure it never gets through the Senate.
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