Friday, November 18, 2011

Federal Regulations Good For The Economy

Or so says Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid. In fact, he's so sure of it that he has used his parliamentary power to make sure that no less than fifteen House-generated bills curtailing bureaucratic excesses have died aborning in the Senate. Never mind the findings of the committees over in the House of Plebeians, this Senator knows that regulations do no harm to the economy because, well, he just knows.

On Wednesday, the great Patrician rose on the floor of the Senate to tell the Ignorati: "While it's proper to guard against and remove onerous regulations, and we need to do that, my Republican friends have yet to produce a single shred of evidence that the regulations they hate so much do the broad economic harms they claim. That's because there aren't any (emphasis added)." Tell that to the farmers and and agricultural workers in California's Central Valley. Or perhaps the 20,000 workers, union and non-union alike, who will now have no jobs generated by the stalled Keystone XL Pipeline.

Those House bills will not see a vote so long as Reid remains in charge of the machinery of getting bills to Senate committees and the Senate floor. In fact, Reid touts the record of Democrats in preventing new regulations from being enacted during the Obama administration. His stalking-horse (or Judas Goat) is nobody less than the regulations czar himself, Cass Sunstein. Sunstein is nothing if not an accomplished liar.

In the three years of the Obama administration, the number of regulatory federal employees has increased by thirteen percent to 281,000 petty bureaucrats. In 2010 alone, the number of regulations increased by eighteen percent. For 2011, there are over four thousand new or revised regulations pending. The budget for regulators and regulations during the Obama administration is now at $54 billion annually, an increase of sixteen percent.

And those are only the direct costs. The Small Business Administration estimates that federal regulations are an annual cost to everyone of $1.75 trillion. In all fairness, this big government regulatory monstrosity has been burgeoning for decades. Like Topsy, it just growed. Most of that trillion-plus figure was snowballing before the Obama administration ever slithered its way into office. The seventy-five new regulations from the first twenty-six months of Obamism have added a mere $40 billion to the burden to business and consumers (I never thought I'd find myself saying a mere $40 billion).

But never fear. The One is working on it. The above figures don't yet include the costs of the pending EPA clean air/clean water rules, carbon suppression, FCC net neutrality rules, Dodd-Frank banking and investment regulations, and the Big Kahuna--Obamacare. I think it's time someone walked up to Harry Reid, slapped him hard in the face, and yelled "wake up you unconscious fool!" During the worst economic times since the Great Depression, crippling regulations (including pre-Obama regulations) are continuing to proliferate, bureaucracies continue to grow, the federal payroll continues to increase, and the brain-dead Reid still holds that there is no adverse effect on the economy.

40 comments:

Joel Farnham said...

What he means is that there is no adverse effect to him or his cronies, which to him IS the economy.

Slapping him will do no good, LawHawk. Haven't you seen his face? I bet his mother slapped him daily. That is why he is brain dead.

Harry Reid said...

Central Valley farmers? Small Business Administration findings? Implementation cost estimates?

(fingers in ears) La-la-la-la, can't hear you, la-la-la-la...

tryanmax said...

No doubt, slapping Harry Reid in the face would feel good--nay, right--and relieve some stress, to boot.

Sadly, there are a lot of idiots who scarf down Reid's Pablum® that no evidence exists that regulations harm the economy. Not long ago, some smarmy self-ascribed "moderate" challenged me to name "one regulation" that is hurting the economy. In a moment of exceptional clarity, I retorted, "Which line of the net catches the bear? Which bar of the cage traps the tiger?"

Perhaps I was too brilliant, because he just snorted back, "Well, if you can't answer my question..."

I died a little that day.

Game Master Rob Adams said...

We can only HOPE that they really CHANGE and balancing the budget is a good first step.

Unknown said...

Joel: True. True. True. As for the slap, it reminds me of the old Rodney Dangerfield joke. When he was born, the doctor took one look at him and slapped his mother.

Unknown said...

Harry: All right then, we'll try cattle prods. Maybe that'll get your attention.

Unknown said...

tryanmax: Subtlety is not their long suit. But it probably doesn't matter. If you had simply given him a list, he would have denied it anyway.

Unknown said...

ACG: The chances of regulatory rollback in the Senate during this term are pretty slim. It would take a lot of pressure from the Blue Dogs to get Reid to unblock the House bills and let the committees move on them. And even then, it wouldn't be a sure thing. The importance of West's boldness is that the issue will still be out there during the election cycle, and a sharp Republican candidate can beat the Democrats over the head with it.

T-Rav said...

LawHawk, unfortunately the question is, will we have a sharp Republican candidate? (Yes, I'm being pessimistic today for some reason.)

Unknown said...

T-Rav: I think that thought is in the back of all our minds right now. I'm not pessimistic, but I'm not really overly optimistic either. I'm pretty sure that part of that is that the thought Obama could win is just thoroughly depressing.

rlaWTX said...

T-Rav, I recognize your pessimism...

Slapping Harry Reid would be youtube gold!!!

tryanmax said...

I keep thinking of "Slapsgiving" from How I Met Your Mother. We should have our own and invite Harry!

Unknown said...

rlaWTX and tryanmax: Why do I think you may have me in mind to deliver the slap? LOL

AndrewPrice said...

Sorry I'm late -- long night of shipping people to the ER.

Leave it to Harry Reid to think that the three million word code of federal regulation is sacrosanct. What a jerk.

Individualist said...

Lawhawk

You make great points but I am wondering if you see things the way Reid sees things....

You see Lawhawk the first thing one must unde4rstand is that regulations have to be written down and they need a lot of paper to distribute them.

Some one has to print the regulation... Jobs


Some one has to get the paper and ink to print them... jobs... the paper comes from cutting trees and the ink from oil ... jobs.. getting trees and oil is difficult because it is evil to get them but we must have4 them to print out our regulations requiring you guessed it more regulations and more jobs....

Some one has to figure out how to pretend to recycle the trees and oil even though one cannot recycle enough to provide paper and ink and they must then write up how to do this and make more regulations... jobs jobs jobs

meanwhile those stupid GOPer's sit there typing on there silly blogs without using any paper.... we need Net Nuetrality to Regulate them... Hey! More Jobs!

tryanmax said...

Lawhawk said:
"Why do I think you may have me in mind to deliver the slap?"


I don't know why you think that. That slap is MINE, biotch!

T-Rav said...

I hereby draft LawHawk for the "Slap Harry Reid" event! (Although maybe you should go after Nancy Pelosi instead, being a fellow Californian.)

tryanmax said...

Oh, well, if we're keeping it local, I assume there are no objections if I slap Sen. Ben Nelson?

Unknown said...

Andrew: Lifting the IRS regs alone could give an average person a hernia. The Federal Register of regulations currently stands at about 80,000 pages. I'm guessing Reid and the Democrats didn't read those either.

Unknown said...

Individualist: Don't confuse us with the facts. LOL The Democrats say that Obama is the Jobs President, and now, thanks to your info, I know why.

Unknown said...

tryanmax: He's all yours. I've already been nominated to deliver the slap to Pelosi.

Tennessee Jed said...

apart from the fact it is hard to prove the extent of specific regulations, the reality is, it is so vitally important to win all branches of government to really make changes. We have all seen how easy it is to stop legislation. The libs also will legislate from the bench if need be, and one needs an executive branch willing to enforce what congress passes. Part of the problem is there actually is a place in government for some regulation which is why a compliant media can pander to the uninformed and make it appear over-regulation is needed.

Unknown said...

T-Rav: tryanmax has already usurped my slapping authority, and slapping Pelosi would be sexist. What's a boy to do?

Unknown said...

tryanmax: You can have Reid and Nelson. I'll establish my sexist credentials by taking Pelosi and Boxer. I'd do Feinstein too, but I think one slap and her face would fall off.

Game Master Rob Adams said...

Law - Funny that he's the jobs prez and not the 'career' president but then I suppose it is hard to have a career in an imaginary zip code.

T-Rav said...

LawHawk, since Harry Reid's basically a little girl himself anyway, I see your point. Too bad.

Individualist said...

Lawhawk and ArmChairGeneral

With regards to jobs Obama is giving us the Business

Ok ... I'll stop now....

Unknown said...

Tennessee: You are quite correct. That's why I cited SBA estimates, since they're part of the problem and their estimates are probably low.

What we need is a president who will "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Right now, we have a president who picks and chooses which laws to enforce and which to ignore and if Congress is silent or noncommital, he will simply issue executive orders to create his own law.

Bureaucratic, unelected agencies are indeed needed. Not all regulation is bad. But the EPA is the best example of why these agencies should have a drop-dead expiration date. The original EPA did some good things, including cleaning up toxic waste dumps and protecting the rivers and aquifers. But when it ran out of legitimate things to do, it just started creating things to do in order to perpetuate itself.

Expiration dates should not just address funding, but the very existence of the agency itself. If it can't justify its existence without bootstrapping on its own nonsense, it should expire. Some full Departments should also have a shelf life (and in the case of Energy, Health and Human Services and Education, that time has already come and gone).

Unknown said...

ACG: A "career" requires dedication and long-range planning. Obama is lacking in both, at least about anything except his own glorification. The only jobs he's good at are con jobs.

Unknown said...

T-Rav: I don't know why (perhaps the Las Vegas connection), but every time I hear Reid talk, I instantly think of Liberace.

Unknown said...

Indi: No need to stop, I'm really enjoying the snark, not to mention the double-entendres.

tryanmax said...

Sounds like we'll be havin' a good old-fashioned slap-fest.

LawHawk, be careful slapping Pelosi's face, too. It might snap like a rubber band.

Unknown said...

tryanmax: Does Botox shift when hit? I suddenly have a picture of Pelosi with the right side of her face drooping and the left side somewhere up in her scalp.

tryanmax said...

Well, there's one good way to find out...!

Unknown said...

tryanmax: Somehow I knew that's what you'd say. LOL

StanH said...

I recommend a club as opposed to slapping, less chance of getting some on you.

I wish someone would stand up in the well of the senate when a Harry Reid says something as stupid as this, and says, “that’s about the dumbest crap I’ve ever heard in my life, are you stupid, senile or both?!”

By the way Harry Reid boxed in the Golden Gloves when he was a kid, another reason for a club.

StanH said...

Oh! With the Pelosi, and Boxer I recommend a bucket of water.

Unknown said...

Stan: Excellent suggestion. As for Reid, time marches on. I was a marathon runner when I was young, and now I carefully plan a trip across the living room. He ain't so tough. LOL

I would really love to see another Senator call him on the baloney. But they have those stupid rules about "civility." If I were a Senator, I would choke having to call him "my honorable colleague." And then I'd get expelled from the chamber for calling him a lying sack of poop. There are advantages to being a private citizen.

Unknown said...

Stan: And I'm keeping the ruby slippers.

Unknown said...

Anon: "Green" in more ways than one.

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