Corporate Crackdown

WHY A CORPORATE CRACKDOWN?

Since early 2022, we at Revolving Door Project have been calling for a Corporate Crackdown—that is, a coordinated executive branch effort to crack down on corporate wrongdoing using regulations already on the books, picking visible fights with corporate villains who are extracting money from the masses and making the planet unlivable.  

As we’ve argued, it would be both good governance and good politics for the Biden administration to prioritize a Corporate Crackdown. It should be the role of the government, and particularly public servants in the executive branch, to protect the public against corporate abuses—that is the responsibility they have been entrusted with in a democratic society. 

Focusing on a Corporate Crackdown is also good politics. People know that corporations and the wealthy are taking advantage of them without being held accountable. Our polling research, along with numerous polls by other outlets, shows that a majority of US voters across party lines support more corporate enforcement actions by the Biden administration, and believe corporations and the wealthy get away with wrongdoing too often. (We summarized an updated series of polls stressing popular anger at corporations and desire for accountability in a recent blog post.)

Whether it’s Big Pharma lining their pockets by hiking prescription drug prices, corporate landlords raising rents in the midst of a housing crisis, or fossil fuel companies price-gouging at the fuel pump while polluting and driving climate catastrophes with impunity, the impacts of corporate wrongdoing are hitting us every day, in every aspect of our lives, and people are fed up. The admirable campaign against junk fees is a terrific opening move in such a campaign–but it isn’t a complete campaign on its own.

The Biden administration must seize on this widespread anger and frustration by placing itself firmly on the side of workers and regular people, in clear opposition to the far too numerous bad actors among the corporate class. 

We’ve made this argument in outlets including Newsweek and The New Republic, giving specific examples of corporate villains like the notorious chief economist of software company RealPage, known for helping landlords price-gouge renters. We’re never short of ideas for other arenas where the Biden administration can build on their solid antitrust track record by challenging corporate power across sectors—defending the public and getting credit for populist governance at the same time.  

Other past Corporate Crackdown efforts include:

• Conducting polling, which demonstrated broad, bipartisan belief that corporations and the wealthy get away with breaking the law unpunished, and high levels of support for cracking down on this wrongdoing; 
• Issuing reports, prominently our Climate Corporate Crackdown report, that outline what a whole of government approach to using existing regulation to interrupt corporate misdeeds would look like; and 
• Publishing regular newsletters and pieces in other outlets pointing out opportunities for the executive branch to take action in mitigating the impact of corporate exploitation on the public.

Follow upcoming work in our Corporate Crackdown portfolio here. We bring this lens to core areas of Revolving Door Project’s work, including tracking corporate influence over climate policy, financial regulation, and law enforcement at the Department of Justice, and scrutinizing Biden and his appointees’ messaging and priorities heading into election season. 

KEY WORK AREAS

• CLIMATE JUSTICE. The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, among others agencies, must use existing protections to hold oil and gas companies accountable when they cause spills, leaks, and otherwise pollute our water and air, while  contributing to catastrophic climate change.
• FINANCIAL REGULATION. The SEC, CFTC, CFPB, and FTC, among other federal units, must avoid being taken in by financial institutions’ insistence that lifelong bankers and corporate executives have supernatural levels of expertise and are above reproach. Whether it’s holding crypto grifters accountable for conning consumers or shaming companies who skirt safety regulations relevant to their products, these agencies must live up to their mandate in defending the public from extractive, profit-hungry corporations.
  
  
• DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. As white-collar law enforcement has fallen to record lows, we are calling on the law enforcement arm of the federal government to step up to the challenge of going after powerful law-breakers. The Justice Department has enormous power to hold elites accountable under both civil and criminal law. It’s about time that the Justice Department prioritize society’s most powerful breakers of laws, be the laws civil or criminal.