Cass Sunstein is head of something called the “Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.” I’ve seen enough conspiracy thrillers to know that when someone has so obvious a blandly amorphous federal-job description as that, it means he’s running some deeply sinister wet-work operation of illegal targeted assassinations in unfriendly nations that the government spooks want to keep off the books and far from prying eyes.
Oh, no, wait. Actually, Covert Operative Sunstein passes his day doing more or less what the sign on the door says: He collects information about regulatory affairs. More specifically, he is charged by the president with “an unprecedented government-wide review of regulations” in order to “improve or remove those that are out-of-date, unnecessary, excessively burdensome or in conflict with other rules.”
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How many has he got “removed” so far? Well, last week he took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to crow that dairy farmers will henceforth be exempted from the burdens of a 1970s EPA-era directive classifying milk as an “oil” and subjecting it, as Professor Sunstein typed with a straight face, “to costly rules designed to prevent oil spills”. But Ol’ MacDonald and his crack team of Red Adair–trained milkmaids can henceforth relax because now, writes Professor Sunstein, Washington is “giving new meaning to the phrase, ‘Don’t cry over spilled milk.’”
That’s a federally licensed joke from Sunstein’s colleagues at the Agency of Guffaw and Titter Regulation, so feel free to laugh.
Did you know milk was an oil? It is to the federal government, and, if a Holstein blows in the Gulf of Mexico and beaches from Florida to Louisiana are suddenly threatened by a tide of full-fat crude, they want to know you’ve got the federally mandated equipment to deal with it. With hindsight, the president’s remark in the early days of the BP oil spill that he was meeting with experts “so I know whose ass to kick” was not just a bit of vulgar braggadocio but the fault of early Department of Energy findings that the spillage was caused by asses’ milk from BP (Burros & Poitous Ltd., a member of the Big Ass cartel). “Your ass is on the line!” as the president told BP’s Tony Hayward after his donkey was found wandering down the first 38 billion-dollar stretch of the federally funded high-speed-rail track.
Whoops, sorry, I made the mistake of hiring Cass Sunstein’s federally accredited “spilled milk” gag writer. Where was I?
Oh, yeah, federal regulation. So this EPA directive requiring milk to be treated the same as petroleum for the purposes of storage and transportation has been around since the ’70s and it’s only taken the best part of four decades to get it partially suspended even though it’s udderly insane? Hallelujah!
At that rate of regulatory reform, we’ll be . . . well, let Sunstein explain it. Aside from his crowing over spilled milk, he cites other triumphs: The Departments of Commerce and State are “pursuing reforms”; the Department of Health and Human Services “will be reconsidering burdensome regulatory requirements”; and the Department of the Interior will be “reviewing cumbersome, outdated regulations.”
Wow! “Pursuing,” “reconsidering,” and “reviewing”? Meanwhile, back at the Department of Bureaus and Agencies, they’re pursuing a review of their reconsideration of reforms. That’s great news, isn’t it? I’ll take a wild guess and bet that the upshot of this frenzied “pursuit” will be a ton of new regulations about streamlining regulatory oversight and improving regulatory harmonization: The big growth area in America’s post-modern Republic of Paperwork is regulations about regulating regulations. For example, in New York City, applying for the “right” to open a restaurant requires dealing with the conflicting demands of at least eleven municipal agencies, plus submitting to 23 city inspections and applying for 30 different permits and certificates. Not including the state liquor license. Recognizing that this could all get very complicated, the city set up a new bureaucratic body to help you negotiate your way through all the other bureaucratic bodies.
And, for every little victory, there are a zillion crankings of the government vise elsewhere. Plucked at random from the Obamacare bill:
“The Secretary shall develop oral healthcare components that shall include tooth-level surveillance.”
I sure hope someone is working on the Obama waive the rules video. It's got the potential to go viral, what with footage from the latest GB trip and a very catchy tune.
I knew there was something about the Obama administration that was beyond disagreement, something about them just outright frightens me. I couldn't pinoint it until I reasearched this Cass Sunstein guy. He is one quack of a whack with some scary hopes for our future. For one I should not be writing this since it may be a conspiracy theory to disagree with this guy. His goal to limit free speech would make way for the silencing of anyone who disagrees with Cass Sunstein. To think I used to be stupid enough to think that it was the progressives that were the party of liberty. Forgive me, I was ignorant and
stupid when I was a lefty. My family has already been kicked into second class citizenship. My husband works 90 hour weeks to run our small business. We would be doing quite well, but after the government confiscates more than we get to keep, which I should be celebrating on tax day according to Cass Sunstein, we are lucky if we have enough to afford diapers and mass produced factory chickens. If Cass Sunstein had it his way, he would outlaw the factory farmed chickens too. The way this guy thinks, and now acts from the perch of a powerful position, it seems as though his goal is to starve a large portion of the population. I'm scared. What these people believe matters. If they believe in population control in their personal life, it is not unreasonable to suspect this guy will use his powerful perch to implement his radical ideologies.
Just another example in this monstrosity of a system we call Government, of our "death by a thousand wounds", and the march towards the unelected ruling class.
I can't blame the Liberals for what they've created, they are just doing what they do. It was/is the Conservatives who allowed it to happen. To twist Alexis de Toqueville a bit, "We Americans will only get the government we deserve."
Changes at the State and local levels are fine, but it's the Feds who have amassed the power, and it is the Fed that needs an overhaul - and before "we the people" lose the ability to select our leadership. Without it, the "crash" is imminent, and I wonder though if we shall retain the "power" to "reboot".
Absolutely depressing--and thanks, Mark, for delivering it all with your usual wit and good cheer.
If you have a few minutes to kill, google "list of federal government departments," and click on the top result.
Dumbfounded by their sheer number? Now, imagine that each of these hundreds of departments is staffed by tens, hundreds, or thousands of employees making salaries and enjoying benefits that many in the private sector can only dream about.
At this point, only after a major upheaval can most of these departments be slashed, as they should. The client society we have created won't allow this to be done by sober consensus in normal times. Just look at Wisconsin and see what happens when a fringe benefit to these parasites is threatened, and at the state level to boot.
But not to worry, if we keep printing money to pay for this opulent Byzantium, while our currency devalues like an aging cheerleader, the "major upheaval" may just be around the corner.
Mr. Steyn great article! Thank you very much. If this issue could be cleverly taken up and spread to the America People it would be a winning campaign issue. Everyone hates useless regulation. One of my friends opened a restaurant in a Mall and he had to pay an inspector a "fee" of $260 to drive out and make sure the Mall!!! had a parking lot in place.
The federal government's regulatory lists have so many stupid, counter intuitive and plain whacky regulations that if we got a constant stream of them coming out into the public Tea Party strength could double in the next election.
This issue as been simmering for many years if we just get some candidates to take it up we could really dent the big government party again.
Finally I want to make a point about Conservatives and big government. From the 30s and for the following 50 years liberals were able to grow and grow government with hardly a pause, the honorable post FDR congress a fine shining exception, only since Reagan has the Republican party even really become a Conservative party and that really didn't happen until '94. He really haven't had much time to turn the ship around. But turn it we must.
I doubt there's any such think as a "useless regulation." If nothing else, regulations move money from capitalists to workers by creating jobs to administer them. That's always good.
People put up with this because they are being raised as well as taught to be citizens of a Social Democracy. In the past we raised people to be Citizens of a Republic. I believe that is why there hasn't been an all-out revolt. The CSD upbringing teaches that your betters will look out for you (your pressure group, government or what-ever) it promotes laziness and is infectious with messages bombarding the populous from all sides.
This gets back to my question of a month ago; Why was everybody so worried about the government shutting down? Pay the military, send out the social security checks, keep someone on at treasury to send interest payments to the Chinese, and if the rest of it goes bye-bye, then hallelujah!
Conservative domestic policy consists of trickle-down tax cuts and deregulation. I get that. But Steyn's hysterical citation of the SBA's "1.75 trillion" study is dubious.
"John W. Dawson, an economist at Appalachian State University, and co-author John Seater of North Carolina State University, estimated that 2008 GDP would be $11.3 trillion higher if not for the opportunity costs imposed by federal regulations. They did so by using the page count of the Code of Federal Regulations as a proxy for the extent of regulation."
So you cite evidence that Steyn's quote of 1.75T of costs to small businesses for regulation is 'hysterical' includes an economist that states regulation costs the economy 11.3T. Well done, Sir, well done
@maksutov: Are you seriously taking those reports as factual and accurate?! OMG--those are the nutcases that are making the regulation WORSE!! All you have to do is attend a small town city council, a local school board meeting, a utility company, or talk to ANYONE in business to know that federal and state regulations are driving costs higher and higher in so many ways, it's becoming downright depressing.
We have to reverse this. Government bureaucrats and idiot politians do not know how to run our lives and businesses better than we do. They can't even balance a budget. When they get THAT right, they can come talk to us.
As I posted to the WSJ's editorial response to the ridiculous Cass Sunstein editorial, "When people need to ask for permission just to work, they are no longer free. Illusion of freedom notwithstanding."
I laughed at the last line (*without* permission from the Agency of Guffaw and Titter Regulation). But mostly I had to cry at what our once-great republic is slouching towards.
It's all about getting as many otherwise unemployable people as possible on the government teat so that, once dependent upon it, they will be inclined to keep the beast--the federal government and all those who administer it--well fed with campaign tribute, votes, and plenty of tax revenue.
Both parties are guilty of it, as are the cattle who continually and dutifully reelect them, and we sheep, who obediently submit to it all.
Reading the words "tooth-level surveillance" produced the first true laugh-out-loud moment I've had this week. So I guess regulatory bloat is good for something after all.
Your first link simply reiterates portions of your second link. Your second link points out obviously that OMB does not supply Congress with the cost of tax filing and preparation by individuals, or corporations. By simply stating "should tax paperwork be considered in the same category as regulatory costs" speaks volumes as to the bias of your source.
Case in Point:
GE has over 1,000 employees that are responsible for making sure it gets every tax loophole it is entitled to, thus it paid zero taxes on billion of profit made in the US last year. The cost of the tax preparation would include all of the salaries of these people, and also the loss of revenue for the lost taxes on base profit to government. They are a liberal company that gains with the system, versus an oil company that pays a much higher proportion of taxes on a much smaller profit margin. GE 33%, Oil avg. 11%.
$1.75 trillion is not an exact figure, as there is not means to arrive at an exact figure, but it is a ballpark that is more close to being correct than the argument of regulation creates a net benefit on a cost basis. If that were remotely true, nobody would argue against regulation, it would be the greatest tool in government hands for growth and improving the economy ever created.
Common sense states this is not the case. Regulation has merit in many areas, but it also comes at a cost, and in some cases the cost is unbearable to the degree it ruins entire free market systems such as Health Care, Oil Industry, Housing, Construction, Mercantile, Agriculture, Automotive, not to mention the 4th amendment of which we used to enjoy, but regulation has all but dissolved.
Steyn used a figure from the SBA that is as debatable as anything else anyone uses as a source involving such matters. What is dubious are the links you provided to counter his use of the SBA. Is there no cost involved in tax preparation in America? I did not realize it was free of employees, time, energy, records, reports, etc. As stated, common sense dictates there is a cost, it is a matter of what that cost is, but your source argues if that cost should even be considered as a fee due to regulation? Absolutely PREPOSTEROUS!
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