Washington – At a Capitol Hill jobs forum this morning, House Speaker John Boehner met with small-business owners and discussed his legislative agenda. “We’ve heard an awful lot about regulations today,” he said. “I think it’s time for Congress to do its Constitutionally–mandated duty to hold agencies accountable for what they do and they don’t do. And as part of that, we probably ought to take a real serious look at how regulators regulate.”
“We have the most adversarial regulatory system in the United States, [more] than almost anywhere in the world,” Boehner argued. “When you look at how the Germans do it and some others, it’s a collaborative process. We all want clean water, we all want clean air, we want to take care of our employees. But it’s an adversarial relationship that just gets heated up an heated up, and we need to look at what that relationship really ought to look like.”
Cutting spending, he added, remains his top priority. He also discussed tax reform and free trade, and hopes to see progress on both fronts in coming weeks.