Our Blog

As we creep closer to November’s election, Democratic politicians–progressives and moderates alike–have largely fallen in line behind presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Even so, Biden must earn the vote of many progressive voters who are wary of his pro-corporate leanings. While Biden showed promise by teaming up with Sanders’ campaign on policy, there is still cause for grave concern. Just last week, the public learned that Larry Summers was advising the Biden campaign. Last month Biden’s donors put out a list of ideal candidates for senior-level administration positions, which included Wall Street big wigs such as BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink, Blackstone executive Tony James, and investment banker Mark Gallogly. Biden’s wealthy donors must be monitored in order to prevent corporate interests from capturing his transition-planning effort.

The Revolving Door Project’s “Presidential Power Map” provides an easy-to-understand snapshot of 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidates’ support by sector. By breaking down high-dollar support in this way, this tool encourages users to draw direct lines between big money fundraising and a president’s choices regarding personnel and executive power. Using the “Presidential Power Map,” members of the Revolving Door Project’s team have begun to tease out these connections and to consider what they might mean for the composition and priorities of a future administration.

Private equity firms play an increasingly central role in financing the healthcare industry. These firm’s investments in healthcare include everything from hospitals to ambulance transport companies to specialized medical services. The industry’s encroachment into healthcare is increasing costs, especially in circumstances where patients have few choices and are in need of immediate medical attention.

Private equity (PE) owned nursing homes have a bad reputation. The industry’s, by now infamous, cost-cutting strategies have been shown to lead to measurable declines in patients’ health, safety, and wellbeing when undertaken in the nursing home context. The Carlyle Group’s acquisition of HCR ManorCare in 2011, for example, left patients with “overdoses, bedsores, [and] broken bones” before driving the company into financial ruin.

By breaking down high-dollar support by sector, this tool encourages users to draw direct lines between big money fundraising and a president’s choices regarding personnel and executive power.

The Pandemic Anti-Monopoly Act would preemptively stop harmful mergers that not only affect American consumers, but economies all over the world that rely on the same global supply chains. Undoubtedly, companies looking to acquire struggling businesses during the pandemic will try to take advantage of the “failing firm” argument to justify acquisitions. But what actions have lawmakers and antitrust enforcement officials in other countries undertaken to prevent predatory mergers while businesses struggle?

With real estate tycoon Donald Trump in the White House, the average American is likely more aware than ever of the many ways the federal government helps to subsidize real estate profits. As the average person increasingly struggles to pay rising housing costs with stagnating wages, real estate giants make out like bandits with the help of tax loopholes and direct subsidies. Already a matter of pressing national concern, this stark disparity is only likely to become more salient in the coming months as the pandemic sheds light on the risks of our housing system’s precarity and undermines many people’s fragile grip on housing stability.

On December 18, 2019, the United States House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump for withholding military aid from Ukraine as a means to pressure Vladimir Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden. One of the key figures in this scandal was Gordon Sondland, then ambassador to the European Union. Sondland had limited diplomatic experience before his appointment, but he had the privilege of donating $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural committee.

Over the past several weeks, the SBA has been criticized for its administration and oversight of its Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offers forgivable loans designed to be spent on payroll expenses. But little attention has been paid to the SBA’s second COVID-response loan effort: the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. EIDLs provide small businesses affected by disasters with emergency loans. Over the past few decades, the SBA has provided EIDLs after major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and 9/11.

Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser said, “This anti-competitive merger further entrenches Big Pharma at the expense of all Americans. Big Pharma’s playbook here is no less dangerous for having become rote: They hire well-connected revolving door FTC alumni to secure approval for mergers that undermine the public interest. To restore the public interest at the FTC, we will need to end the FTC-to-BigLaw pipeline that has helped bring about an economy that works well for rich investors rather than American consumers or workers.”

On April 30, the Biden campaign announced to surprisingly little fanfare that it had selected a committee of advisers who’d help pick his running mate. The only non-politician of the bunch is Cynthia Hogan, Apple’s top lobbyist since April 2016.

The Agency Spotlight is a unique tool which tracks appointments to agency leadership positions through the confirmation process and beyond. In order to elevate this tool we release monthly summaries of topline statistics that capture the state of the independent federal agencies.

The Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy (“Advocacy”) is a little known corner of the executive branch that wields a surprising amount of power, particularly in the regulatory process. This research memo explores the powers Advocacy possesses, how the office gained this power, and the potential Advocacy may have in a progressive administration to be a strong anti-consolidation voice in the regulatory process.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal revealed that contrary to stated company policies, Amazon looks at proprietary information generated for third-party sellers on the platform when developing its house-brand offerings. Cases described to the Journal include Amazon engineers peeking at the total sales, profit margins, and shipping costs for a popular third-party car trunk organizer which sells on Amazon Marketplace. Amazon later used that data to help design its own, rival product. Third-party sellers have long believed that Amazon wasn’t looking at this information because…Amazon said it wasn’t looking at this information. Instead, the tech giant’s control of both the Marketplace and its own house brands grants it an anti-competitive advantage over smaller sellers who depend on Amazon’s marketplace to survive. They can’t check all of their competitors’ stats on a whim to figure out how to drive them out of business.

Many Americans might not have heard of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) before COVID-19. In fact, the small executive agency has been involved in the federal government’s response to some of the largest economic crises and natural disasters over the past two decades. This time around, the SBA has been thrust front and center as it attempts to administer one of the largest loan programs in our nation’s history. But if our Congressional leaders had spent time understanding the SBA’s limitations, perhaps they would have paused before giving the agency free rein to hand out billions of taxpayer dollars.