In the next few days, President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is expected to issue another final regulation directed at electricity utilities. This rule, known as the Utility MACT, will impose an estimated $11 billion each year in new costs on our economy. It will threaten electricity-generating capacity in many parts of the country. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this administration’s runaway rulemaking.
I’m often asked when I’m home in Michigan why the House of Representatives has been so active this year passing legislation related to environment and energy rules.
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The answer is simple. The Obama administration forced our hand with a regulatory approach that threatens to destroy jobs and drive up costs for families.
Never before have we seen a regulatory agenda as broad and as costly. Compounding the pain, the Obama administration unleashed its aggressive regulatory agenda on an economy that was already the weakest in decades.
The Obama administration and likeminded Democrats in Congress have consistently misread the problem and the solution. They missed the American people’s desire for balanced policy that protects jobs; they failed to see that reasonable regulatory solutions garnered broad support; and they underestimated the depth of our economic problems.
According to data available from the Office of Management and Budget, President Obama has issued 50 percent more “economically significant regulations” (those with an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more) per year than President Clinton and 44 percent more than George W. Bush.
Unfortunately, when it comes to regulations, it’s not just that there are more of them: The Obama administration’s regulatory actions are also more expensive. The average annual cost of major regulations under the Bush administration was $4.9 billion. Under Obama, the average cost has ballooned to $12.5 billion — that’s a cost increase of more than 150 percent to American businesses and consumers.
A bipartisan coalition in the House of Representatives has risen up to reject the Obama administration’s high-volume, high-cost approach to regulations. This is a natural reaction to an administration that has consistently misread the American mood and miscalculated the appropriate response to what ails our economy.
Over the past year, the House has approved numerous bills compelling the Obama administration to take a more commonsense approach to regulations: bills that would continue to protect the public and the environment while also protecting the economy. These measures would shield as many as 2 million or more American jobs put at risk by regulatory overreach, and they would remove the uncertainty that is such a powerful deterrent to economic recovery.
If it's not one thing, it's another. A few years ago, all conservatives seemed to be concerned about was illegal immigration. Well, we got that one whipped, now what? (sarcasm folks)
The Cleveland Fed recently released a study on the effects of regulation on business formation. I have to give them credit for naming the issue. We have 25 million unemployed at $2 trillion in uninvested cash in U.S. corporations. That's not normal for a "recovery." External Link
I just know that once we get rid of all these pesky environmental regulations and labor unions in the United States, that those wonderful Corporations (who always do the right thing because they love humankind so much) will return from overseas (where all those workers who have no rights and benefits whatsoever so they can mass produce all those shoddy products) and America can once again become a shining beacon (on a hill) and we will live forever, and ever and evermore in bliss and harmony.
Well put! I appreciate your sarcasm. I'm usually complaining about unions here or there and this more "left of center" activity. But, every ying needs its yang. And while corporations work toward their and their shareholders interests - which they MUST and should - there are consequences that just don't reconcile well with the new zeitgeist. Hence, unions are a useful offset to unfetterd corporate power. And while I respect 'unions" and union members (for the most part), I can't stand the rhetoric and harshness with which union leadership treats everyone. Anyway, sorry to divert.
To point: you're right, if we cleared the deck to make this the United States of Corporation, we would not be a happy bunch of campers.
Let's assume tax reform plods through. Most "conservative economists" state that corporate taxes are merely a "pass-through", that prices merely add that cost onto the price of the goods. Nice theory, but I'll bet 30 minutes of having to listen to Deborah Wasserman Schultz in a small conference room that if you removed that tax, the prices on goods sold would NOT fall proportionally.
Rather, prices, set in a market place, would stay where they were, additional profits would find their way into higher dividends to shareholders (IF the company had dividends). All of which would be positive economically, but ONLY for those who owned stocks. My guess is at least a third or more of this newfound wealth would go to bonuses for top execs. Great! But, the increased economic activity generated by that tax elimination has NOT in any way shape or form helped the overall economy, the national budget, nor the astronomical deficit.
So, that's a long way of saying, to an extent, I agree with your rather subtle premise :)
Mr Upton misreads the problem. Mr Obama has not miscalculated or misread the mood of the country or the depth of the recession. He WANTS us to fail, he WANTS to cripple American capitalism and he is doing all that he can in one term (Please let it be only One, Lord!) to destroy our economy.
Instead of diplomatically-worded discussions we should have an American Spring, a million angry people filling the Mall in Washington, demanding Obama's resignation every day until this socialist goes. We should have the R-led House of Representatives investigating him 24/7/52. We should have impeachments and state by state refusal to accede to bureaucratic fiats.
Apparently my previous expression of disagreement with Mr. Upton's alleged attempt to repeal his light bulb ban did not make it through. The House of Representatives would vote to repeal the light bulb ban. It has not been presented with a clear opportunity to vote on repeal and nothing else. If Mr. Upton wanted to present the House with a clean repeal bill he could.
