Boehner to Obama: Come clean on cost of new regulations
The only question I have about this is: What took so long?
From a letter Speaker John Boehner sent today to President Obama:
This year the Administration’s current regulatory agenda identifies 219 planned new regulations that have estimated annual costs in excess of $100 million each. That’s almost a 15 percent increase over last year [when there were 191 such regulations], and appears to contradict public suggestions by the Administration this week that the regulatory burden on American job creators is being scaled back. …
I was startled to learn that the EPA estimates that at least one of its proposed rules will cost our economy as much as $90 billion per year. The Administration has not disclosed how many of the other 218 planned rules will cost more than $1 billion, nor identified these rules. This information is of great relevance to the American people, who face so much uncertainty about these new regulatory costs, and to the Congress, where we continue to aim to work with you in relieving unnecessary burdens and helping employers move forward to create jobs.
I am again asking that your Administration provide a list of all pending and planned rulemakings with a projected impact on our economy in excess of $1 billion.
A reporting threshold of only $100 million is far too low. If we only know that each of the 219 new rules would cost at least that amount, we can only say that the aggregate cost is at least $21.9 billion. That’s bad enough — but as Boehner’s letter notes, one of the 219 on its own is projected to cost at least $90 billion. So, the total cost is really at least $111.8 billion, and probably much, much more.
The public ought to know exactly how much more.
Obama can propose all the new stimulus he wants, but any effects will be severely dampened by the $111.8 billion-plus his agencies are taking back out of the economy at the same time. And not even hard-core Keynesians claim there’s a multiplier effect for regulatory costs. This is the bureaucratic version of Bastiat’s broken window fallacy.
A better, no-cost stimulus would be, as I pointed out last week, to put a freeze on these costly new rules.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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209 comments Add your comment
Dacula 1995
August 26th, 2011
1:08 pm
Tiberius…..apparently not….you think the civil war was about slavery dont you? Really?? You know more than me? I think not.
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:10 pm
Actually, Dacula, I don’t. Would you like to be wrong again about something today and guess incorrectly about something else?
Dacula 1995
August 26th, 2011
1:11 pm
Tiberius…..regarding what?
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:13 pm
Regarding your contention that the GOP has done more for African Americans, or that I believe that slavery was the cause of the Late Misunderstanding.
Dacula 1995
August 26th, 2011
1:16 pm
Tiberius……Go ahead.
Check these stats
August 26th, 2011
1:17 pm
What a douche, and I’m not talking about Boehner.
Plato
August 26th, 2011
1:18 pm
Government regulations killed the US buggy whip industry.
MarkV
August 26th, 2011
1:18 pm
Kyle,
You article as well as Boehner’s letter share the same fallacy: That the cost to “the burden on American job creators” and a “burden to the economy” are the same thing. The “burden on American job creators” is an increase in the cost of running their business. It says nothing about the effect on the economy in general, or about the benefits for the society gained by the application of the regulations.
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:19 pm
“Tiberius……Go ahead.”
With . . . what?
Dacula 1995
August 26th, 2011
1:24 pm
I was waiting for you to spew your ignorace about this….
Regarding your contention that the GOP has done more for African Americans, or that I believe that slavery was the cause of the Late Misunderstanding.
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:27 pm
“You article as well as Boehner’s letter share the same fallacy: That the cost to “the burden on American job creators” and a “burden to the economy” are the same thing. The “burden on American job creators” is an increase in the cost of running their business. It says nothing about the effect on the economy in general, or about the benefits for the society gained by the application of the regulations.”
Pure, unadulterated lack of understanding of what it takes to create jobs or economic reality, MarkV.
If you have a burden on American job creators, it automatically becomes a burden to the economy, because now you have more reasons and resources to NOT hire people. When you increase the cost of doing business, you force companies to do ore with less. The less comes out to be layoffs.
Some regulations are certainly helpful, but do we really need a OSHA certification standard for a freakin’ step ladder?
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:28 pm
Already did, Dacula. Please try to keep up.
ByteMe
August 26th, 2011
1:28 pm
Lil’ Barry, only someone with poor reading comprehension skills would think that’s what I wrote. Perhaps they let you out of middle school class for lunch… time for you to get back to class, little one. You’re the next generation, time to start working hard and make us proud!
Truth
August 26th, 2011
1:28 pm
Jimmy Carter, I mean Obama is done on 2012.
Dacula 1995
August 26th, 2011
1:29 pm
Tiberius…..actually you didn’t. What color Kool Aid are you drinking today? You may want to slow down.
ByteMe
August 26th, 2011
1:29 pm
If you have a burden on American job creators
…and there’s the fallacy in the logic. Regulations are not automatically “burdens on American job creators” unless you believe they are. Reality is often quite different from your beliefs.
Tom Mariner
August 26th, 2011
1:31 pm
Wait, it gets better — this is regulations that cost the regulated because of the restrictive nature that may or may not make sense, but costs money. The real costs come from the hiring of hundreds of thousands of PERMANENT new employees to administer these programs. They locked into a Civil Service system designed to keep incoming administrations from sweeping away employees to put in those with ones who agree with their agenda. That was why it was vital that the Congress pass all of this new legislation while they could instead of tackling the economic disaster. Now that the hiring requisitions are out, the Federal Government will be flooded with new, never leaving employees hired not because of the job they can do in the area they were hired for — but because they share a philosophy with the current Administration and will fight any Conservative values from within the government.
Costs now? How about for the next 30 years. S&P was an optimist — wait until everybody gets the truth that we are locking in some serious cost upticks.
Dacula 1995
August 26th, 2011
1:32 pm
AWWWWEEE!!! Poor Barack had to end is vacation a day early. Poor thing.
cs
August 26th, 2011
1:34 pm
Boo hoo hoo….we want to deregulate everything like George Bush did and get some more of that? Yeah, the gusher up economy supporters would like that.
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:34 pm
“Regulations are not automatically “burdens on American job creators” unless you believe they are.’
And regulation that costs the job creator money which could be better used for expansion of his or her business is a burden. Period.
You can argue the efficacy of the regulation all day long, but you cannot argue against the economic burden to the job provider.
JF McNamara
August 26th, 2011
1:35 pm
LOL, I guess since Obama was dominating in poll position, Kyle had to get out an article to move that down the list.
Boehner is doing what he always does. He’s looking for press. Sadly, people commenting don’t even know what the regulations are, yet are talking about how bad they are and how bad Obama is.
Furthermore, Kyle didn’t even look for what the actual regulations are either. He works for a major newspaper and just promoted the propagana. List the regulations and say why they are a waste of time. Otherwise, you’re just printing “He Said, He Said.”
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:37 pm
“Boo hoo hoo….we want to deregulate everything like George Bush did and get some more of that? ”
Gee, and here I thought that all Federal regulations on “everything” disappeared from 2001-2009.
Silly me.
Oy!
Rafe Hollister
August 26th, 2011
1:38 pm
Kyle
14% of Americans polled think we are on the right track. Yet, everyday these liberals come on these blogs and lobby for more regulations, more taxes, more government spending. They argue that tax cuts do not work, when tax cuts have pulled us out of these periods of recession before. None of their ideas have worked and they continue to say that we just didn’t do enough spending or we didn’t regulate enough. It is useless to argue with them. Boehner is wasting his time, Obama will never even give him the courtesy of a reply.
Obummers mindless minions will continue to defend the indefenseable. My mother tells me her county is raising property taxes 28% and she expects people to lose their farms and homes at courthouse auctions. We are truly entering a depression and Obummer knows how to get us out, but refuses to do anything that will repudiate what he believes. An ideological depression is what I call it.
The Huddle: Boehner challenges Obama – Politico | Jiveblogger.com
August 26th, 2011
1:39 pm
[...] Post (blog)Boehner hits administration over planned new regs : 2011-08-26Washington TimesAtlanta Journal Constitution (blog) -Heritage.org (blog) -The Hill (blog)all 14 news [...]
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:41 pm
JF McNamara, I think Boehner’s and Kyle’s points are valid. It is a bit disingenuous to make statement after statement on your taxpayer-funded campaign bus tour about scaling back regulations when the new ones you’re working on right now are going to cost billions, the ones already in the books cost businesses nearly a trillion each year, and you haven’t even gotten around to writing the regulations on your health care reform act.
Greg
August 26th, 2011
1:42 pm
Boehner is right. We don’t need environmental regulations. Private companies should be able to dumb toxic sludge in our neighborhoods whenever they feel like it.
brad
August 26th, 2011
1:42 pm
A more complete picture of the issue:
“States are required to clamp down on emissions in areas that violate the EPA’s ozone limits, which can result in higher costs to businesses. The estimated cost of the EPA’s proposal ranges from $19 billion to $90 billion, and industry says it has the potential to be the most expensive environmental rule in U.S. history. Meanwhile, the EPA says a standard between 60 and 70 ppb would yield between $13 billion and $100 billion in health benefits by reducing premature deaths, respiratory illnesses and emergency room visits.”
Comments, Kyle?
BuyMadeinUSjobs
August 26th, 2011
1:44 pm
All I am interested in is seeing fees put on all of the wallstreet/wealthy to pay back the hidden costs of bailouts. Every item sold but not made here should have a tariff like China has. That money shoul go in a fund in our local small banks or credit unions for small buiness, and worker’s co-ops loans so they can make quality Made in the U.S. products for us to buy. But since large coporations get U. S. tax breaks to move overseas, and cheap labor and Chinese government paid healthcare and unfair trade agreements, they will continue to fire us and go. Politicians are slaves to corporations, who pay billions to get them elected and then send lobbyist in to write the bills in their favor. We are on own own to create our jobs. We need to buy used if we cannot find new other than China and save our money. Let corporations sell to their workers wherever they are if they pay them enough.
Rafe Hollister
August 26th, 2011
1:44 pm
JFM
Boortz was saying yesterday that Obamas panel assigned to revue the regulations and find those that need repealing had only removed one so far. It was the milk spill rules that the dairy industry was required to implement. They had to have an emergency plan and equipment to deal with a accidental milk spill. As a former federal investigator, I can assure you there are thousands of these useless or ourdated regulations still on the books that cause businesses to waste energy and expense on daily.
BW
August 26th, 2011
1:45 pm
Rafe
It’s assuming how little that number is changed from the “conservative” years of Dubya.
MarkV
August 26th, 2011
1:46 pm
Kyle,
One more point. You wrote: “And not even hard-core Keynesians claim there’s a multiplier effect for regulatory costs.”
No? Think again.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/fuel-economy-standards-could-add-236000-california-jobs/
BW
August 26th, 2011
1:46 pm
Assuming should be amazing
Really?
August 26th, 2011
1:49 pm
Lil’ Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
August 26th, 2011
12:52 pm
Only a mind-numbed libtard could be so intellectually weak as to believe we can regulate our way out of Obozo’s new normal of 9% unemployment.
This coming from a Retardlican who thinks that cutting government spending (and the associated government jobs) will help the U.S. unemployment rate. Lil BB is the same Retardlican who thinks that George Bush presided over a job jobless rate of 4% throughout his presidency. In other words, your opinion doesn’t mean much.
That Black guy
August 26th, 2011
1:50 pm
carlosgvv
August 26th, 2011
11:39 am
“Therefore, they require us to fight as hard as possible to get rid of any and all Government regulations”
Why is it that when someone suggests taking a look at the impact of regulations on businesses and the economy, the left almost always responds in the extreme? Please site where anyone (other than you) advocated getting rid of ALL gov’t regulation.
Also, using your logic, if the right is for NO gov’t regulations on business, does that mean the left is for COMPLETE control over business?
See how STUPID it sounds when you use such extremes?
Jefferson
August 26th, 2011
1:51 pm
If you don’t want to follow the rules and regulations, just pay millions to lobbists and buy the politicians. I guess the GOP only wants to regulate peoples private lives, as they don’t regulate anything huh?
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
August 26th, 2011
1:54 pm
Everyone knows that American companies are moving jobs overseas to escape our lax regulatory environment.
Craig Spinks/ Augusta
August 26th, 2011
1:54 pm
Kyle,
How might I obtain a listing of citations of the impending environmental regulations to which you have alluded in today’s column?
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
1:54 pm
“One more point. You wrote: “And not even hard-core Keynesians claim there’s a multiplier effect for regulatory costs.”
No? Think again.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/fuel-economy-standards-could-add-236000-california-jobs/”
Well, counting you, the author of the article and the subject of the article, that makes three people who believe made up data.
I suggest that anyone thinking that government-generated regulations can create jobs in the private sector (rather than the public sector where job creation via regulation thrives), need merely to look at the recent green technology boost by the Feds and states. Green car company in CA out of business after taking millions of Federal dollars. Evergreen in MA fleeces the taxpayers to the tune of about $45 million and goes out of business and shifts jobs overseas.
Rafe Hollister
August 26th, 2011
1:57 pm
BW
I ‘assume’ the number you are referring to is the right track number of 14%. You are right, Bush was on the wrong track, that compassionate concervative crap was just a cover for big spending liberal republican. Although his administration looks like a booming success compared to Obummer, he started us down this hole.
I do believe that even if Dubyah had served a third term this would have been a short lived recession as he would have dramatically reduced taxes and regulations and halted the coming depression in its tracks. Would the debt have increased, probably a great deal, but we could have worked it down later when the economy got back to good times. Everything Obama has done to remedy the situation, by intent or neglect, has made things worse.
MarkV
August 26th, 2011
1:59 pm
Tiberius @1:54 pm: Only someone with a complete ignorance of history would cite a few anecdotal cases as evidence of long-term effects.
josh gibson
August 26th, 2011
2:00 pm
Why do we respect corporations who seek certainty. If our forefathers craved certainty we would all live on the East Coast or more honestly on the continents from which we came. Capitalism is about risk taking. The business I work for is in expansion mode because the owners sense opportunity in the uncertainty. Uncertainty is for socialists. capitalists take chances because in our economic system to the chance takers go the spoils.
The better description for these global dinosaurs who avoid risk like the plague is hoarders. That’s what they are. Not good business people.
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
2:02 pm
Ah, the personal attack argument by MarkV.
Works every time when you have no real argument.
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
2:04 pm
Josh, just because YOUR business feels it is OK to take a risk, doesn’t mean that everyone should. Businesses CALCULATE risk, and then act accordingly.
At least, the good ones do.
Rafe Hollister
August 26th, 2011
2:04 pm
josh
I agree somewhat with what you are saying, take advantage of the uncertainty, but in America, we can change course quite rapidly. If you are business, why not wait 15 more months and hope we can get an administration that is more business friendly.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
August 26th, 2011
2:05 pm
Capitalism is indeed about taking risks…risks that can foreseeably return commensurate profits. Capitalism is not about taking foolhardy risks, such as having your business regulated out of existence, harnessed as a cash cow for big government, or seized and handed over to political cronies such as union thugs.
Rafe Hollister
August 26th, 2011
2:10 pm
Lil Barry is right, risk is making a decision knowing the upside and downside and if you figure the odds right maybe taking an informed plunge.
Investing now is like playing roulette, you might win but it is all determined by sheer luck, not a good business practice.
MarkV
August 26th, 2011
2:11 pm
Tiberius @2:02 pm: It is you, who has no argument. Citing a few cases of failure is ridiculous. Each new industry, whether initiated by the government regulations or not, has had many failures, as anybody with the knowledge of history would know.
”Well, counting you, the author of the article and the subject of the article, that makes three people who believe made up data”
I know, any data that disagree with your view are “made up data.”
Also, what you failed to notice is that my post was in direct contradiction with Kyle’s assertion,” And not even hard-core Keynesians claim there’s a multiplier effect for regulatory costs.” Evidence submitted, case closed.
Jed
August 26th, 2011
2:19 pm
Boehner, WHERE ARE THE JOBS YOU PROMISED??? The Repubs ran on the platform in 2010 of creating jobs. All they have done is argue with President Obama about everything. The GOP/TP are so narrow minded. They attack the deficit, spending cuts for poor and middle class and don’t tax the rich. Keep giving Corporations tax incentives to send jobs oversees. NAFTA and CAFTA cost the US money and jobs. The GOP has but one objective and that is to make President Obama a one term president (their words). People that does not create jobs by slamming everything the president does, says, eats, or breathes. Speaking for me! I like to breath clean air, drink and swim in clean water. Have safe food to eat and safe transportation.
My vote is for President Obama 2012. If you want to get rid of the middle class and have two classes the rich and the poor, vote GOP.
Beachdog
August 26th, 2011
2:24 pm
What about the cost of pollution?
We totally ignore those costs.
Tiberius
August 26th, 2011
2:24 pm
MarkV, if you are here to make points in an argument by finding a statement made by an opinion columnist and then citing a cherry-picked column by another opinion columnist to win an argument, then you need to get a life.
Oh, and you do know that the study was funded by a supposedly non-partisan organization run by a liberal, and the study was performed by the author of the “Global Warming Solutions Act” in California, right?
Maybe you might try something a bit less partisan next time, written by someone who – I don’t know – actually creates jobs?