Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan its September 2023 Porker of the Month for requesting a massive 37 percent budget increase.

Chair Khan wants $590 million for fiscal year (FY) 2024, or $160 million more than the $430 million the agency received in FY 2023 to expand her agency’s regulation of every industry and aspect of the economy. Her anti-capitalist views and anti-business policies have upended more than 100 years of antitrust law enforcement based on the consumer welfare standard. Chair Khan’s heavy-handed effect on the FTC expands beyond agency actions. In 2022, the agency’s ranking, which was one of the highest in 2021 on the annual list compiled by the Partnership for Public Service and Boston Consulting Group, plummeted by more than any other federal agency.

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Under Chair Khan’s leadership, the FTC has abandoned its mission, exceeded its statutory authority, and decided to stop mergers based on pure speculation they might be anti-competitive sometime in the distant future. Chair Khan’s overreach means that no business big or small or consumer is safe. Fortunately, her radical approach to antitrust law is consistently being thrown out of court. Congress should not give the FTC more power and money to wreak havoc on the economy. For undermining the FTC’s mission, turning it into a rogue agency, and harming businesses and consumers by imposing her anti-capitalist views on everything the FTC is doing, Chair Khan was an easy choice for this month’s Porker.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. For more than two decades, Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers and government officials who have shown a blatant disregard for the taxpayers.

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