By Ireland Owens, Daily Caller News Foundation | December 11, 2024
Over a dozen conservative groups urged President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance on Wednesday to address the “wrong direction” of certain policies enacted under the Biden-Harris administration.
The letter, obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation, criticized certain policies currently in place at some government agencies as diminishing the United States’ “global competitiveness,” and urged the incoming administration to enact a “course correction.” The letter was signed by leaders of 19 conservative groups, including the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and Conservatives for Property Rights.
“The beginning of a new administration is the perfect time for a course correction,” the letter states. “The past four years on the wrong track have significantly diminished the United States’ global competitiveness. At present, our country is taking several wrong policy paths.”
The letter claimed that some of the U.S. government’s current policies are undermining “fundamental pillars of America’s historical strength,” such as economic freedom and property rights.
“These current policies dismantle U.S. research and development (R&D) leadership and thereby impede our competitiveness,” according to the letter. “Our government today undermines fundamental pillars of America’s historical strength and success that are instrumental to our reversing course. Those pillars include property rights, economic freedom, the rule of law, and national sovereignty.”
The letter goes on to criticize the Biden-Harris administration’s approach to government price controls as well as its adopting “overly restrictive” trade rules. “Our own government presently intrudes on private rights to own and control property of many forms,” the letter states. “Uncle Sam not only regulates business enterprises the old-fashioned way of red tape, but also through rendering property rights tentative, pursuing aggressive antitrust, adopting overly restrictive trade rules, and discouraging innovation through government price controls.”
President Joe Biden’s trade policies have faced scrutiny, including from Republican Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, who criticized Biden’s trade agenda in March 2023, claiming it benefitted China instead of American workers, and from Trump, who critiqued Biden’s trade agenda as being “pro-China” in a video posted to social media in February 2023.
The Biden-Harris administration also led a crackdown on a number of top companies for anticompetitive practices, leading to a string of antitrust lawsuits being pursued by the federal government.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ also garnered widespread backlash after she proposed price control plans during her failed presidential campaign. Jason Furman, former deputy director of the National Economic Council under former President Barack Obama, criticized Harris’ proposed plan to fine companies that practice “price gouging” on food and groceries and warned of possible negative economic effects.
The letter praised Trump’s nomination of Howard Lutnick to be the next secretary of the Department of Commerce. Trump announced Lutnick’s nomination on Nov. 19 in a post to Truth Social. Lutnick is the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a global financial services firm, and the co-chair of the Trump transition.
“The incoming Trump administration already seems to understand this, as seen in President-elect Trump’s nomination of Howard Lutnick, an inventor and patent owner, as secretary of the Department of Commerce, under which PTO is housed,” the letter states. “We commend this nomination and trust that it is a positive indication that PTO, its sister Commerce agency the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and other vital innovation policy-related posts will be held by individuals devoted to strong patent and IP rights.”
“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,” Trump-Vance Transition Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement shared with the DCNF. “He will deliver.”
Ireland Owens is a contributor at the Daily Caller News Foundation
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