Regulatory Costs Not Rising! So Says an Obama Czar
This is insane:
OBAMA REGULATORY CZAR CLAIMS BUSH WAS WORSE ON RULES
President Obama’s regulatory czar told a Capitol Hill gathering Tuesday that the administration has produced fewer burdensome rules for industry than did the administration of President George W. Bush.
“There is no tsunami” of regulations, said Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, at a symposium on innovation on Capitol Hill, rejecting complaints from the business community and congressional Republicans that the administration’s regulatory policies had harmed the economy and cost U.S. jobs. . . .
“The annual cost of regulations has not increased during the Obama administration,” he said. “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.” [Emph. added]
It is not reassuring to know that the country is being run by people who are delusional. Just so we’re all on the same page: In its 28-month life, the Obama administration has presided over the passage of legislation that provides for the stem-to-stern re-regulation of the health care industry (which accounts for 17% of GDP) and financial services (7%). If the “annual cost of regulation” related to those two overhauls hasn’t yet shown up on whatever tablet Czar Sunstein gazes at all day, it’s only because the new rules related to them are so voluminous and severe that the bureaucrats aren’t done writing them. But private businesses know that higher regulatory-related costs are coming. And they also seem to know (as does everyone else but Sunstein, apparently), that the best way to avoid paying them is to simply not hire anyone unless absolutely necessary. . . . Maybe there’s something to that old line about how being ruled by the Harvard faculty wouldn’t be so great. . . . .
What do you think? Let me know!
9 Responses to “Regulatory Costs Not Rising! So Says an Obama Czar”
Clueless.
Sorry, I can’t get with you on this one. I can use all the help I can get in fighting with behemoth HMO’s.
There are plenty of good reasons for the legislation that Obama has passed. The fact that 40 million Americans don’t have health insurance is more than a moral issue. Since this is a banking site, let’s acknowledge that it is a financial issue. Too many emergency room visits, no ability to negotiate prices for drugs, and gaps in coverage all made our country less secure.
With bank reform, all you have to do is look at the downward trend in housing prices to see that we had a bubble.
Amazing how citizens keep digesting the propaganda of the OBAMA machine. Never tell the truth; alway fabricate and while the public is digesting the fabrications….continue to cut away at the foundations of the society. By the time many awake..it will be over and we will be living in a rigidly controlled society where you have few choices, innovation is dead, the tax burden is crushing, the welfare burden is extreme and the people solely exist for the state. OBAMA is a propagandist for some very sinister types where he and his friends plan to be living well as politicians of his type do all over the world.
apparently you believe in a free lunch. the affordable healthcare act certainly comes with a cost. but doing nothing also comes with a steep price that the government pays, every business that provides health care to its employees pays and every individual with insurance pays.
Hey, Tom. I buy your point about the financial services industry completely, but please don’t go all Sarah Palin on us. Health care is a very different animal.
The bill for our little community bank is $500K on a total expense base of $7.5 million for keeping our regulators happy. (By the way, that worked out to letting 6 people go) Heathcare will soon be the government’s problem because we will be dropping our company sponsered program soon. It’s cheaper to pay the fine than it is to offer the benefit.
Least business friendly administration since…well, since forever.
You are absolutely correct, Tom. Czar Sunstein and his counterparts are totally nuts. I don’t think the administration has anyone in it who understands the myriad ways regulations are strangling business and dampening the economy. Wish McGovern’s 1992 letter to the WSJ were required reading for all ‘public servants’ – particularly those who’ve never operated in the private sector, much less tried to run a small business. In it, McGovern discusses the adverse effect of laws and regulations on small business which he discovered when he bought and tried to run an inn after 24 years of public service. A remarkable epiphany and too little known!
Tom. Agreed. Really all they needed to do with some exceptions related to “transparency” in credit card and mortgage disclosures to consumers, was to provide more “boots on the ground” to examine what financial institutions are doing about existing regulations and in many cases modify them to simplify those with existing mandates. I found in writing my Senator Merkley, his inexperienced staff could care less what a financial services/banking veteran of 35 years had to say. After several months of letters, phone calls and 2 personal appearances to talk with staff, I finally gave up. So it goes inside the Beltway!! Crowso
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