Progressives in Washington claim they seek to lower prices but are instead targeting the very practices that keep them low — practices that President Trump’s antitrust team has explicitly stated are both legal and 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 bill promises to protect small businesses from unfair pricing, yet its reality is stark: it would render everyday discounts legally risky and push prices up for all consumers.
Larger purchases reduce costs, stabilize supply chains, and provide sellers with predictability. In return, buyers receive lower per-unit prices — the mechanism by which Americans save money at stores like Costco, Walmart, and Kroger.
These retailers negotiate lower prices through bulk purchasing and pass savings to consumers. Undermining this system would undermine affordable shopping for millions.
The Robinson-Patman Act, which progressives aim to expand via this legislation, was never intended to ban such arrangements. It targets narrower cases where a seller provides preferential pricing to one buyer while arbitrarily denying it to others, harming competition.
This distinction separates pro-consumer practices (which lower grocery bills) from actual corporate abuse. The new bill seeks to erase that line entirely by broadening liability, dragging ordinary pricing decisions into legal gray zones.
The Biden administration already attempted this approach and failed. Very recently, on X, Senior Legal Analyst Mehek Cooke explained how the Biden-era Federal Trade Commission targeted Southern Glazer’s, a wine distributor, for bulk purchasing practices that secured cheaper prices.
Cooke highlighted a deposition clip in which the FTC admitted lacking concrete evidence of harm to any business or consumer from these practices.
While Trump’s FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has not yet dismissed Southern Glazer’s case, he previously dissented when the Biden administration initiated it and has since worked to halt the agency’s campaign against bulk pricing.
As Ferguson stated in ending a predecessor’s overly broad Robinson-Patman Act case against PepsiCo: “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 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 falls under President Trump’s team, Democrats have turned to Congress to expand this law instead.
If successful, the bill would have severe consequences. Businesses would become cautious, suppliers would stop tailoring deals, discounts would shrink, and pricing would standardize — not because it is efficient, but because companies would prioritize legal safety over savings. The result: fewer bargains and higher prices at checkout.
Large corporations could absorb compliance costs and navigate regulatory risks without issue. Yet smaller businesses and their customers would bear the burden.
This policy mistake confuses competition with uniformity. Markets are not “fair” when everyone pays the same price; they are fair because firms compete on price, scale, and efficiency.
Restricting how prices are set to equalize outcomes does not protect competition — it is a recipe for a less healthy market.
There is no evidence that ordinary discounting practices drive today’s economic pressures. Inflation stems from macroeconomic forces like supply shocks, fiscal policy, and global instability — not from retailers negotiating bulk deals.
The political messaging may sound appealing: “Fair prices.” “Level playing field.” But behind these slogans lies a policy that punishes efficiency, restricts competition, and raises prices in significant ways.
Americans do not need Washington to police discounts. They need more of them. In this challenging economy, legislators and regulators should make it easier for businesses to provide consumers with pricing discounts — not harder.
