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Reply With QuoteWow, since that post was so long and wordy, I'm going to ignore the fact that it didn't make any sense!
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Secretary of State
One of the many Great Lies that the right wing likes to perpetuate is that government regulations are an almost unmitigated evil, and that Obama and the Democrats are determined to strangle business with them.
As if Obama and Democrats don't want the economy to grow.
To that end, the House will soon consider a bill called the Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, or Reins. Reins would stop any major regulation issued by a federal agency and costing more than $100 million from taking effect unless it received approval from both houses of Congress and the president.
For some 200 years, it's been the practice of Congress to enact laws, like the Clean Air Act. The executive branch then enters into often lengthy negotiation with stakeholders and formulates the actual, detailed regulations.
Congress delegates this responsibility because it has neither the time nor the expertise to develop the rules, or the machinery and manpower to enforce them. Reins would radically re-position Congress to make final decisions that involve detailed technical matters. Congressional staffs would have to explode and they would end up displacing much of the executive branch office space. It would be a mind-blowing rearranging of the deck chairs for no particular reason other than the Republicans are so extreme they just can't stand to not be in control of every bit of power in D.C.
Anyway, the whole far-right myth about the high cost of regulations is not based in fact, as the Economic Policy Institute and many other analyses have found. The EPI study had three main findings:
- Government data show that over several decades, and during the Obama administration as well, the benefits of regulations have significantly and consistently exceeded their costs.
- The much-scrutinized EPA regulations fare especially well according to cost-benefit criteria. The compliance costs of Obama EPA regulations are tiny relative to the size of the economy, are neutralized by their economic benefits, and are dwarfed by their health benefits.
- Academic studies of and data on the relationship between employment and regulations generally find that regulations have a modestly positive or neutral effect on employment.
Even the right-wing columnist David Brooks, whom I normally disagree with, writes:
*these are selections of his column. see the whole thing at the link above. emphases added*
In the first place, President Obama has certainly not shut corporate-types out of the regulatory process. According to data collected by the Center for Progressive Reforms, 62 percent of the people who met with the White House office in charge of reviewing regulations were representatives of industry, while only 16 percent represented activist groups. At these meetings, business representatives outnumbered activists by more than 4 to 1.
Nor is it true that the administration is blindly doing the bidding of the liberal activist groups. On the contrary, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and its administrator, Cass Sunstein, have been the subject of withering attacks from the left. The organization Think Progress says the office is “appalling.” Mother Jones magazine is on the warpath. The Huffington Post published a long article studded with negative comments from unions and environmental activists.
[Obama has] supported a strong review agency in the White House that does rigorous cost-benefit analyses to review proposed regulations and minimize their economic harm.
This office, under Sunstein, is incredibly wonky. It is composed of career number-crunchers of no known ideological bent who try to measure the trade-offs inherent in regulatory action. Deciding among these trade-offs involves relying on both values and data. This office has tried to elevate the role of data so that every close call is not just a matter of pleasing the right ideological army.
[The cost of regs under Obama, compared to Bush is...] a significant step up, as you’d expect when comparing Republican to Democratic administrations, but it is not a socialist onslaught.
[...]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics asks companies why they have laid off workers. Only 13 percent said regulations were a major factor. That number has not increased in the past few years. According to the bureau, roughly 0.18 percent of the mass layoffs in the first half of 2011 were attributable to regulations.
Some of the industries that are the subject of the new rules, like energy and health care, have actually been doing the most hiring. If new regulations were eating into business, we’d see a slip in corporate profits. We are not.
[...]
...in reality, most people in government are trying to find a balance between difficult trade-offs. Whether it’s antiterrorism policy or regulatory policy, most substantive disagreements are within the 40 yard lines.
Obama’s regulations may be more intrusive than some of us would like. They are not tanking the economy.
Last edited by jpn; 12-07-2011 at 09:20 PM.
Secretary of Defense
Wow, since that post was so long and wordy, I'm going to ignore the fact that it didn't make any sense!
Moderator
Myth my ass...
We spend hour upon hour documenting the ream after ream of job stealing, economy crushing over regulation and you walz in and declare it all a myth.
Where's the growth jpn?
Meanwhile for those that still have reading skills
For the math challenged... that's double under Obama from the historical average
jpn maybe the guy crapping on the police car might believe you, but us out in the real world living with this crap day in and day out won't.Rising regulatory burdens are nothing new. The total cost of regulation, according to OIRA, has increased every year since 1982.[3] During the George W. Bush Administration, regulators were particularly active, adding $60 billion in annual regulatory costs to the economy.[4]
But the Obama Administration has outpaced even that robust regulatory output. Based on reports prepared by regulatory agencies themselves, The Heritage Foundation has calculated that through the end of March 2011, the Obama Administration added close to $40 billion in new costs to the economy, more than twice the Bush rate.[5] Fiscal year 2010 was particularly costly, with $26.5 billion in new costs, higher than any other year on record.[6]
OIRA’s estimates are different, claiming that the Obama Administration’s new rules cost less than half that amount—but even that claim leaves Obama’s costs far above the level of George W. Bush’s. The most that OIRA’s Sunstein could claim was that “in its last two years, executive agencies in the Bush administration proposed far higher regulatory costs than did those agencies in the Obama administration in our first two years.”
That claim is disingenuous. The last two years of any administration are always the busiest, as outgoing regulators clean out their inboxes. The first two years are typically the slowest, as the new team is put in place. The attempt to mix early-term apples with late-term oranges is misleading.[7]
Obama's Regulations: Red Tape Tsunami or Ripple?
Secretary of Defense
Before you guys can write in this thread, I'm going to need you to fill out a form in triplicate, attach two pieces of identification, one of which must be notarized, and then wait for six weeks for a response. If you don't hear back from me in eight weeks, please call the toll free number between eleven and eleven thirty and I'll let you know what additional information I require.
Secretary of Defense
I'm exempt from those rules because I'm a government bureaucrat. I wins!
Secretary of Defense
jpn's original post was like most regulations. Lengthy, tedious, and time-consuming. Also, ignored by society.
Secretary of Defense
Wasn’t there a thread where the right was asked to cite one, just one, regulation that was strangling business and they failed to do so?Originally Posted by tsquare
I always find it strange that only reasonable people agree with me.
Secretary of State
How many new refineries are being opened up again? How about nuclear plants? not to mention how much business has much business is obamacare drumming up for company FORCED to pay the penalties? Ooops sorry you just asked for one.
Moderates are not republicans
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
Except that you/we don't run the risk of financial ruin for ignoring it...
That's because there isn't 'just one'. There may be specific ones affecting specific businesses and/or industries. There are a myriad of little ones that don't Strangle business in general, but certainly undercut productivity.
Jumping back to the OP, one aspect caught my eye - Something to the effect of 'the overall benefit of regulations exceeds the overall cost' - Assuming for the moment that this generality is true, it's still no basis for maintaining and/or expanding specific regulations whose cost does not exceed their benefit.
...like the regulatory policies that led to the bad mortgages that led to our latest, greatest recession. (Those being the biggest reason to doubt the above generality, IMO...)
Today's forecast: Government corruption.
Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'
Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian
Secretary of Defense
Who has asked to build new refineries in the last 30 years?
Isn't there a nuke plant in New Mexico being brought on line with a cracked wall? This one I could be wrong about the location. I remember seeing a story the other day about it.
I'm sure you have studied this and can provide the names of the companies FORCED to pay the penalties. And the dollar amount of said penalties?
Vice President
I had no trouble making any sense from it, although I would expect some difficulty from the folks that depend upon Hannity and Rush for their facts.
Not trying to be offensive, just stating what my perceptions are of many cons. Some on the left only get their info from John stewart so you guys have a lot in common, I reckon. You listen to jokers, and think you are well informed on facts.
Truth is all regulations are not of satan. All regulations are not pure socialism. Regulations seek to protect the many from the excesses of the few, who have exponentially too much power in a democratic rep. republic.
Pubs don't like regulations, even the word itself. They live in a self made fantasy, where excesses don't exist, and if they did, then so be it.
Now if you had a regulation that only benefitted the rich, they would finally find one that they loved.
Moderator
No there was a thread asking for banking regulations and I provided several.
Want another one?
Jason Scherr had a lot on his mind the day after he opened his fifth Think Coffee shop in Manhattan last week. The fan was blowing too hard, the classical music was playing a little too loudly—and he was trying to figure out how to get more customers to pay with cash.
A new law that was supposed to reduce costs for merchants that accept debit cards has instead sent Mr. Scherr's monthly processing bills much higher and forced him to reassess the way he does business.
"My choice is to raise prices, discount for cash or get an ATM," says Mr. Scherr, a lawyer who has been in the coffee-shop business for more than a decade.
Just two months after one of the most controversial parts of the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law was enacted, some merchants and consumers are starting to pay the price.
Many business owners who sell low-priced goods like coffee and candy bars now are paying higher rates—not lower—when their customers use debit cards for transactions that are less than roughly $10.
That is because credit-card companies used to give merchants discounts on debit-card fees they pay on small transactions. But the Dodd-Frank Act placed an overall cap on the fees, and the banking industry has responded by eliminating the discounts.
"There will be some unhappy parties, as there always is when the government gets in the way of the free-market system," says Chris McWilton, president of U.S. markets for MasterCard Inc. He said the company decided that it couldn't sustain the discounts under the new rate model because the old rates had essentially subsidized the small-ticket discounts.
Debit-Card Fee Cap Has Nasty Side Effect - WSJ.com
Vice President
They failed to do so? I doubt it. I deal with OSHA, EPA, and worst of all the FMLA all the time. People abuse and scam the system all the time.
Let me just give one example. We give out perfect attendance awards. Now, for those of you who do not know what is hang on. For those who think you know, let me assure you that you do not. Our HR people went to a FMLA seminar and specifically asked the question about an individual who did not show up to work 5 times that quarter if they have to give the person the perfect attendance award since the 5 days they were out were under FMLA.
The answer? ABSOLUTELY.
So, we can no longer use the "Perfect Attendance Award" to differentiate those people who never miss work from those people that scam a stupid government regulation.
"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
-- Patrick Henry
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
When people bitch about regulations, I hand them a copy of The Jungle and ask how their hamburger tastes.
When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why they are poor, they called me a Communist.
-Bishop Hélder Câmara
"I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization"
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Moderator
My copy from you seems to have been lost on it's way here...
So you know.
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