Americans Don't Need Washington Policing Discounts

Progressives in Washington say they want to lower prices, but they are targeting the very practices that keep them low — practices that Trump's antitrust team has made clear are not only legal but also pro-consumer.

A group of Senate progressives recently introduced the "Fair Prices for Local Businesses Act," a proposal to expand a nearly century-old antitrust law. The pitch is simple: protect small businesses from unfair pricing. The reality is simpler still: this bill would make everyday discounts legally risky - and push prices up for everyone else.

In any normal market, bigger orders get better prices.

That's not discrimination.

It's math.

Larger purchases reduce costs, stabilize supply chains, and give sellers predictability.

In return, buyers get a lower per-unit price.

That is how Americans save money at stores such as Costco, Walmart, and Kroger.

These retailers don't just buy in bulk - they negotiate lower prices and pass those savings on to consumers. If you undermine that system, you undermine affordable shopping.

The law progressives want to expand through this new legislation - the Robinson-Patman Act - was never meant to ban such arrangements.

It targets something narrower - cases where a seller gives preferential prices to one buyer while arbitrarily denying them to others, harming competition in the process.

That distinction is what separates pro-consumer pricing practices (which make our grocery store bills lower!) from actual corporate abuse.

The new bill is attempting to slowly wipe out that line entirely. By broadening liability, it would drag ordinary pricing decisions into legal gray zones.

The kicker is that the Biden administration already tried and failed to do exactly this.

Very recently, on (Twitter)/X, Senior Legal Analyst Mehek Cooke explained how the Biden administration's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) tried to go after Southern Glazer’s, a wine distributor, because of how it purchased its goods in bulk to obtain cheaper prices.

Cooke linked to a video clip from the deposition in which even the FTC admitted to not having any concrete evidence of even one business or consumer being harmed from the practice.

While Trump FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has not yet dropped Southern Glazer's case, he dissented when the Biden team first initiated it and has already been working to put a stop to his agency’s war on bulk pricing generally.

As Ferguson put it when he ended one of his predecessor’s overly expansive Robinson-Patman Act case against PepsiCo:

"As I said months ago, the Robinson-Patman Act is a valid law that the Commission is constitutionally obliged to enforce.

"But we must do so only after a thorough investigation has assured us that the defendant has violated the Act, that we are likely to prevail in litigation, and that we are maximizing the effect of our finite enforcement resources consistent with the purpose of the Act.

"None of that is true in this case. We therefore dismiss it and clean up the Biden-Harris FTC’s mess."

Now that antitrust policy is handled by President Trump's team, Democrats have resorted to trying to expand this law in Congress instead.

If they succeed, the consequences will be severe.

Faced with that risk, businesses will not get creative. They will get cautious. Suppliers will stop tailoring deals. Discounts will shrink. Pricing will standardize - not because it’s efficient, but because it will feel legally safer for companies. The result will be fewer bargains and higher prices at the register.

Large corporations will manage just fine. They can absorb compliance costs, hire lawyers, and navigate regulatory risk.

It's smaller players - and their customers - who will feel the squeeze.

This is a familiar mistake in antitrust policy: confusing competition with uniformity. Markets are not "fair" because everyone pays the same price.

They are fair because firms compete: on price, scale, and efficiency.

\Trying to equalize outcomes by restricting how prices are set doesn’t protect competition.

It weakens it.

That'S not a recipe for a healthier market.

It'S a recipe for paralysis.

And for what?

There is no evidence whatsoever that ordinary discounting practices are the source of today’s economic pressures.

Inflation is driven by macroeconomic forces - supply shocks, fiscal policy and global instability - not by whether a retailer negotiates a better deal on bulk goods.

The political messaging may sound appealing. "Fair prices." "Level playing field."

But behind the slogans is a policy that punishes efficiency, restricts competition, and yes, raises prices in considerable ways.

Americans don't need Washington policing discounts.

They need more of them. In this rocky economy, legislators and regulators should make it easier for businesses to get consumers pricing discounts, not harder.

Let's put the lid on this counterproductive legislative proposal before it's too late.

Horace Cooper previously served as counsel to House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey and is an author and legal commentator who has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, as well as in a variety of print publications. Read more of Horace Cooper Insider articles — Click Here Now.