I'm not understanding where or what he's basing his statements on? This seems to be the bill he's referencing: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/228 It's extremely short and can be easily read, it's a fraction as long as the article.
The bill seems to do nothing except change various filing fees, and give ~half a billion to the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division. I base this on the text of the bill as well as the bill's description itself: "This bill modifies and expands the schedule for graduated merger filing fees and requires that such fees be adjusted each year based on the Consumer Price Index."
Yeah, the article seems to be more about promoting a certain political meta-narrative than actually analyzing the bill. Parts of it are misleading and it doesn't link to the actual bill, which any normal blogger would do within the very first paragraph.
The whole point of the article is to discuss the political meta-narrative. If you’re just looking for the substance of the bill, and you’re especially not interested if it hasn’t been signed into law, this article isn’t for you.
The article does exactly that under the subheading “The Substance”, and in the first sentence thereof also links to earlier articles expanding on the contents of the bill.
I would suggest looking into all the work by this writer. This guy wrote a huge book on the subject, along with a regular newsletter, which this article is part of.
Increases in filing fees will support an expansion of the FTC and DOJ Antitrust enforcement budget available to Lina Khan and Jonathan Kantor. These are two lawyers that Big Tech are particularly afraid of, accusing them of being impartial^1 and/or asking for their recusal.^2 One could imagine that Big Tech wants to foster divisiveness so that lawmakers cannot unite to support Khan and Kantor. Big Tech profits from divisiveness. It drives "engagement". It also derails any legislative progress toward regulation.
What Stoller is suggesting is that this bill's passing shows that lawmakers can unite in support of Khan and Kantor's proposed work.
The bill seems to do nothing except change various filing fees, and give ~half a billion to the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division. I base this on the text of the bill as well as the bill's description itself: "This bill modifies and expands the schedule for graduated merger filing fees and requires that such fees be adjusted each year based on the Consumer Price Index."