Senator Warren is going after the largest American sandwich chain over fears that “a sandwich shop monopoly” will drive up the price of its cherished six-inch stretches of bread, turkey, and cheese. 

Ms. Warren is lauding the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into the sale of sandwich giant Subway, which went for about $10 billion to a private equity firm, Roark Capital, in August. The firm owns Subway’s top sandwich shop competitors — Jimmy John’s, Arby’s, McAlister’s Deli, and Scholtzky’s — raising concerns that the potential acquisition would give it too much power over a lucrative segment of the fast food industry.

“We don’t need another private equity deal that could lead to higher food prices for consumers,” Ms. Warren wrote on X on Sunday. “The @FTC is right to investigate whether the purchase of @SUBWAY by the same firm that owns @jimmyjohns and @McAlistersDeli creates a sandwich shop monopoly.”

The move is part of a broader crackdown by the FTC chairwoman, Lina Khan, on high-profile mergers and acquisitions in the name of helping consumers. 

To some consumers, though, soaring prices on staple goods is not the fault of corporate America but of Washington. “As usual, the politicians in Washington who actually caused the inflation are blaming businesses,” one user commented on Ms. Warren’s post. Another argued that she was part of the problem: “If you really hate monopolies, why do you always want the world’s most powerful monopoly — the U.S. Government — to have more power?”

An award-winning economist, Milton Friedman, famously outlined the fundamental cause of a rise in the cost of living. “Inflation is made in Washington because only Washington can create money,” he said in a 1978 lecture that has been circulating on social media as government spending has skyrocketed. “And any other attribute to other groups of inflation is wrong.”  

By that logic, pointing the blame for fiscal failure toward “Big Sandwich” is a fool’s errand. Ms. Warren’s crusade amounts to, as one X user joked, “sandwichgate.” President Trump’s communications director for his 2020 re-election campaign, Tim Murtaugh, also invoked sarcasm in commenting: “It’s what the Framers always feared — centralization of sandwiches.”

Mom-and-pop shops comprise a large majority of the million or so food service outlets in America, a spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association, Vanessa Sink, tells the Sun. “Seven in 10 restaurants are single-unit (independent) operations,” she says. According to July 2023 data, nine out of 10 restaurants in the United States are small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

Meanwhile, the price of a McDonald’s burger and fries has soared 10 percent since 2020 — a fact that President Biden has appeared to hide. “Rather than steer America toward honest money that would automatically curb price increases,” the Sun wrote in an editorial on Monday, “he’s turning to what a federal judge calls his ‘Ministry of Truth,’ an online censorship regime, to stifle gripes about inflation as a form of “misinformation.”

As one of the biggest antitrust hawks in the Senate, Ms. Warren has applauded the FTC’s heightened focus on breaking up deal-making by private equity firms. Following her demands, the agency is also investigating the merger between two grocery store chains, Albertsons and Kroger. 

In September, the FTC sued a provider of anesthesia practices in Texas and its private equity firm over allegations that a roll-up strategy illegally consolidated the market. “Stealth consolidation schemes,” Ms. Khan said, “unlawfully undermine fair competition and harm the American public.” 

Yet the antitrust regulator has failed to win a single merger challenge in court under Ms. Khan’s leadership. Its attempt to block Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard was rejected by the courts and is now under appeal. 

The probe of Roark could take a year or longer, as is typical for merger reviews, leaving the FTC to decide whether to sue to block the deal, reach some sort of agreement with the companies, or take no action at all. A spokeswoman for Roark Capital declined to comment on the matter. The press offices of FTC and Subway did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by deadline.

For now, consumers will have to front up to $11 to enjoy America’s favorite lunch sandwich, as the $5 footlong deal that once fueled the Subway franchise’s success recedes into a relic of the past.