Speaker of the House Mike Johnson today:
We want to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state. These agencies have been weaponized against the people. It’s crushing the free market; it’s like a boot on the neck of job creators and entrepreneurs and risk takers.
I know this is standard Republican rhetoric, but I wonder if they ever actually listen to themselves when they say this? I'm hardly in favor of regulation willy nilly, but all the evidence suggests that it hasn't hurt much of anything. Business applications in the US continue to rise. Our economic growth is the best among advanced countries. Construction spending has skyrocketed. The finance industry continues to make mountains of money. Innovation is strong. Business profits as a share of the economy have nearly doubled over the past two decades.
At the same time, air and water quality has improved tremendously over the past 50 years. Industrial accidents have declined. Consumer protection is stronger. Seat belts and air bags save thousands of lives a year.
And just look at the economic performance of highly regulated states. The five most regulated states (allegedly) are:
- California
- New York
- New Jersey
- Illinois
- Texas
The five least regulated states are:
- Idaho
- South Dakota
- North Dakota
- Montana
- Nevada
Which list strikes you as the economic powerhouses? If you guessed the top one, congratulations. The most regulated states have a combined GDP per capita a third higher than the least regulated ones, and both have the same growth rate.
None of this is to suggest that regulation is an unalloyed good. The Jones Act has wrecked the US shipping industry. Regulatory capture is a real thing. Occupational licensing could probably stand to be pared back. Regulations often harm small companies more than deep-pocketed big ones. The deregulation of trains, planes, trucks and telephones was reasonably successful. (Deregulation of the savings and loan industry less so.) Etc.
But what's the case for a generalized jihad against regulation? It's a little hard to see one.
I don't want an overbearing nanny state, who does? But time and time and time again corporations and smaller companies do all they can to go around, under, over regulations or even just ignore decent humane behavior in the pursuit of profit.
It's a balancing act that has objectively tilted towards the corporations and said profits.
It seems to me that the most visible manifestation of the nanny state is drug laws. The basic purpose of drug prohibition is to prohibit people from harming themselves, whereas the proper purpose of criminal law, in my view and John Stuart Mills's, is to prohibit people from harming unconsenting others.
My test for intellectual honesty in small government conservatives is their attitude to drug prohibition. If they don't favor abolishing drug prohibition, they're not following their own principles.
You could probably get rid of 90% of the harm done by the Jones Act by simply allowing for ships to be purchased from foreign shipyards, even if the crew and ownership still has to be American. If the Navy is worried this might limit a merchant marine, then require that they be bought from US allies - the South Koreans would be happy to build a ton of cargo ships for us (and destroyers as well - IIRC they basically make a Burke-class destroyer equivalent except much cheaper).
Beijing's AQI index today is (consults monitor) 238. And this isn't a once every two or three years occurrence like it is in Seattle. Trump does admire Xi, so...
These are some of my favorite posts, where you wonder what could be behind R's policy choices. It's a mystery, I tell you.
Kevin has complete mastery of the rhetorical question.
What they truly want is a unfettered capitalist system where the consequences of irresponsible and reckless behavior are non existent.
AKA privatize the profits, socialize the losses.
Exactly. That's what "risk taking" means. And always, with other people's money!
At this point-- after what, at least 50-some years as a standard R staple, since at least the Clean Air Act?-- it's just a mantra for most Rs, and there isn't much more to it by way of substance.
However, it's in fact one of the few MAGA-era grievances that connects with both an old-fashioned Chamber of Commerce Republican credo and the sagebrush West (and neo-Confederate) resistance to Big Gummint in DC, so it's now a bedrock article of faith that helps hold the party together nationally.
From that point of view it isn't a dumb theme for Johnson to hit, as long as we (and he) understand it as an opposition-party organizing mantra. As an actual policy to be carried out there's no question that it would be a complete disaster locally, nationally, and globally.
And that's another good reason why they have to lose now, and lose badly. They have to get to a point where what they say in order to reach their people has some relation to what would be viable as governing priorities. They've been able to disconnect themselves too completely from real governing for way too long now.
+1
As is abundantly obvious by now, right-wingers have zero interest in the truth.
They care only for truthiness. Because that’s what they can sell to their rubes.
The Republican Party actually prefers recessions—we’ve had one under every Republican president since Hoover, and none under Biden, Obama, or Clinton—because that’s when billionaires scoop up the assets of the middle class at fire-sale prices.
The Republican Party is an utter, parasitic disgrace.
+1
For the most part I’m pretty happy with regulations. I like that tap water is drinkable almost anywhere in the US. I like that food in nearly all restaurants won’t kill me. I like that automobiles are much safer to drive, elevators don’t fall and kill people and most buildings don’t fall down. We could do better but OSHA protects a lot of workers from harm. We just built a new home in California engineered to meet newer earthquake safety requirements which makes me feel safer. We could probably survive a magnitude 8 earthquake. In other countries even a magnitude 5 or 6 causes a lot of death.
I’ve seen the opposite cases. In Seoul I was visiting on business when they had several bridges collapse, a department store collapsed and an apartment building collapsed. One of the bridge collapses didn’t hurt anyone because it fell down before it opened.
I get that at some regulation is unneeded. I don’t imagine that we could cut very much without causing unintended injury down the road.
As far as food not killing you, that seems to be breaking down a lot lately. But that's certainly not due to too much regulation.
In re
"Regulations often harm small companies more than deep-pocketed big ones. "
Virtually always rather - bureacracy is much easier for large entities to deal with and even flourish under. The more dynamic companies market of the USA versus Europe can be attached in part to this, given W. European thickets of regulation (a non trivial part of which is outdated and more about Incumbent Protection than anything else).
Obviously the US Libertarian "regulation is bad" is an overdone thing - however simplistic comparisions as Drum has done are not really best mode of comparison (large dynamic economies with resource [including immaterial human] can get away with quite a lot more friction-efficiency loss than small poor ones).
The Democrats might profitably capture small professionals by seeking streamlining of regulation and cutting back weeds as it is a well know bureaucratic property - corporate as well as government - for complexity to grow like fungus as small decisions (and petty turf wars, etc) generate unintended complexities. Make intelligent red-tape cutting and smoothing part of your discourse, there are votes to be won.
Of course also targetting areas that accelerate Green Energy - this highlights again the overly simple (and thus not particularly relevatory) graphing by Drum as it's already evident that the larger economies ex Texas are self-hindering new RE and new RE enabling infra (transmission and distribution) from thickets of out-dated regulation.
Simplification and streamlining - not elimination.
The funny thing is that the only time I see well-written articles calling for a weakened or eliminated regulation, they are written by liberals, who explain the history and purpose of the regulation, the problems it causes, any social, legal or technological shifts that have changed the situation since the regulation’s drafting, and then provide an alternative and explain how it would work.
Conservatives just spew hysteria.
I'm so old that I can remember when Vice President Al Gore was charged with doing this, way back in the 1990s, and apparently had some notable successes (which I can't recall and am too lazy to look up now; apologies!)
Irrelevantly, he could have been a good to great President.
"Irrelevantly, he could have been a good to great President."
Indeed, but what was that compared to Blessed Reverend Mother* O'Connor's retirement plans?
*According to the obits, all of which skated over that little foible.
Yeah, it was much easier to file your taxes in the 90s.
Having agencies rated by their output and ease of access would help streamline alot of regulatory burden.
Compliance with many regulations unavoidably carries economies of scale. An obvious example is cars; a big part of the cost of compliance with emission controls and safety standards is fixed rather than per unit, and the effective price per unit of those fixed costs falls as the number of units rises. The regulations are not intended to make existence impossible for niche manufacturers, but that is the effect.
On the other hand, I don't think niche car makers should be exempted from standards.
Certainly not safety ones!
But also, regulations which are opaque and the government agencies aren't entrusted to make sure you know how to comply benefit big companies but when government agencies make them easier to comply with those incumbents lose that advantage.
Regulation as such is a good thing (it makes the rules of a competitive market clear to stop unfair practices), but regulation can be bad or good. What it should not do is stop innovation. As far as possible what should be regulated is what are borders of acceptable behaviour (for instance labour rules, transparency rules and pollution rules) not how those borders should be observed.
The market actually needs regulation:
1. because it allows consumers to trust the products being offered by people they do not know personally;
2. because it ensures that the consumers have all the information they require to make informed decisions, and to know that information is accurate and has been controlled,
3. because of externalities.
The cost of using litigation to resolve these things (as Glibertarians seem to think will resolve these issues) is exorbitant (much higher than regulation).
This is not just an opinion, this is how things worked historically.
Well put. A well-functioning capitalist marketplace *needs* reasonable regulation. Otherwise it just becomes a bottomless hole of corruption, graft, and invisible risks that no-one wants to touch with a ten-foot pole. As I wrote below, Democrats should be taking this issue back from Republicans and start running on maintaining an honest, efficient marketplace that will benefit everyone.
You're identifying this as a strength, but I think it's a key weakness:
"Construction spending has skyrocketed."
The issue - and it's very significantly a regulation issue - is that the amount of spending it takes to build a given amount of infrastructure has skyrocketed. From most perspectives, "it now takes a decade of legal wrangling to upgrade an outdated pipeline" is not an improvement. Similarly, "getting a plan for a new house approved takes a year, and costs $100k" isn't an improvement. Both show up as increased construction spending.
Well, if we shut down all the fossil fuel extraction (which we will NEED to do soon), we wouldn't even need a new pipeline. And I'm sure you have picked extreme cases. And note - you are talking about legal costs, not regulation costs. It is the lack of clear, transparent regulation that is the problem.
Pipelines are used for more than fossil fuels.
Well let's see:
-- For the thin stratum of sociopathic plutocrats whose interests the party promotes assiduously, deregulation boosts profits and avoids annoying corporate responsibility, eg for providing safe products and workplaces or for the consequences of pollution
-- For the large mass of ignorant and emotionally underdeveloped voters on whom the party depends for votes, it allows them to act out their childish fantasies of "independence" and "freedom," which resemble more than anything adolescent temper-tantrums
-- For both, it's a way of denying social responsibility, which each is happy to take advantage of in others but is angrily opposed to recognizing in turn.
kkseattle's description of Republicans generally as "parasitic" is pretty apt.
"Cancerous" much more accurate.
Like cancer, which starts from cells of the body, it is made of people that are part of the population. Parasistes are from outside the body.
Exact and complete. No other explanation needed. All other commentary is meaningless and self serving. I would add only that "denying social responsibility" has devolved since Gingrich into "I'll do whatever the fuck I want and destroy anyone who tries to stop me." Which as you point out, for the psychopaths is reality, for their minions fantasy.
Always remember, regulations are written in blood. There's usually a very good (and often tragic) reason why most of these exist. I myself don't care to learn those painful lessons again.
Q: "But what's the case for a generalized jihad against regulation?"
A: Anecdata. It's all they got.
Regulation makes grifting harder.
Our Halloween treat,
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-women-protector/
Currently, that doesn't appear on the front page of CNN, but does on ABC News NBC news.
This is just pandering to the small business owners in the GOP, which includes very wealthy farmers who profit from government regulations, among many others who also benefit from them. Since in their view government is ALWAYS making things harder for business owners, this is a good line. Business owners, IME, are quick to complain about ANY regulation that affects them. They like to frame regulations as hurting working people, too. If you propose noise regulations on any kind of machinery, for instance, in the interests of everyone with ears, they respond that it "kills jobs."
Remember, to GOP members, real-world outcomes DON'T MATTER. What matters is adhering to "real-world principles." That American businesses are doing better than ever is not relevant.
Yeah, that is the "fox guarding the hen-house" problem. No separation of duties. I like it when Glibertarians warn about corruption. They want to institutionalize corruption instead. Just look at how the Republican Party has corrupted (deliberately) the judiciary.
The problem is not one system or another, the problem is lack of accountability and concentration of power.
And that is yet another reason why there should be no billionaires.
oops - this was meant to be a reply to the following post. Not sure why it ended up here.
The worst environmental disasters on Earth occur in autocracies, where regulations disappear whenever the autocrat wants. Neither Russia nor China has safe tap water, both have vast swathes of land that cannot be used agriculturally because of pollution, and China has nearly the worst air quality on Earth.
Yet Republicans still routinely describe environmental regulation as "communist".
Try again from above:
Yeah, that is the "fox guarding the hen-house" problem. No separation of duties. I like it when Glibertarians warn about corruption. They want to institutionalize corruption instead. Just look at how the Republican Party has corrupted (deliberately) the judiciary.
The problem is not one system or another, the problem is lack of accountability and concentration of power.
And that is yet another reason why there should be no billionaires.
Why are so fond of risk-takers? They will end up blowing up the world, if they haven't already. I prefer people who are concerned about possible consequences.
There are actually regulations that make it hard for new, "risk-taking" entrants into the market. But big business tends to like those regs because it means less competition, so Repugs aren't going to touch those.
I would like to see Democrats adopt more of Elizabeth Warren's rhetoric on this and start branding the party as the truly *fair* free market capitalism party -- get serious about antitrust enforcement, bust up big oligopolies and, reduce barriers to market entry, direct regulatory relief and subsidies to small businesses rather than huge multinational corporations, etc.
Regulations don't remove risk, they just hold the risk taker accountable. That's the thing they have against Regulations. They don't want accountability. There is such a thing as responsible risk taking opposed to reckless risk taking.
I stand by the idea that he smashes candy corn into his face to do his makeup.
To prove he's a regular guy, here he is dressed as a garbage oompah loompah out on patrol,
https://i.redd.it/kzmkikyzc0yd1.jpeg
Imagine if you saw this guy grabbing your garbage early one morning.
Seat belt requirements were going to put the auto industry out of business. Bars and restaurants could never survive smoking bans. Any time there's any sort of regulation (increased CAFE standards, the EPA, OSHA) companies claim it will put them out of business. And they just keep rolling along, making profits.
We should monitor regulations to make sure they're effective at doing what they were designed for. We should do our best to keep red tape to a minimum. But we NEED regulations. In many cases, we need MORE than we have. Companies have shown time and again that without regulations, they will abuse their discretion, creating problems for the rest of us to clean up or live with.
Don't forget catalytic converters - remember how they were going to make cars so expensive that most people would not be able to afford them? The hysteria was based on the amount of platinum used in the first experiments (close to a pound IIRC) - by the time they came out for consumer use the amount of platinum needed had dropped way down.
The kinds of regulations that tend to be burdensome for a lot of small businesses tend to be the local and state ones, not federal. The federal government oversees a lot of big stuff -- like whether your crypto hedge fund is a huge ponzi scheme, or whether discharging tons of pollutants into a river is bad. That's what Republicans want to get rid of. Whatever regulations prevent the kind of graft and grift that their billionaire donors thrive on.
All Crypto is a Ponzi scheme.
That is inaccurate.
At the base it is a money-laundering system. Ponzi schemes are add-ons.
This is all hate speech and loathing that the repulsives have learned from t-Rump to get attention and the front page. It works doesn't it?
Who knows what these cotton brains think, if they do at all.
The language in the quote that kevin gives is harsher than it used to be, but the attitude isn't.
History has shown that financial deregulation is disastrous. Speculators seek the fastest way to make money and this usually involves leverage (speculating with borrowed money), which can result in what start out as mild downturns resulting in big crashes.
After the biggest crash of the Depression, regulations were passed but many have been abandoned. The Fed was designed by some big bankers to bail out the finance industry and that is what it did in 2008-9, but the end result was further enlargement of the industry.
The bigger the finance industry the more power it has with legislators and the more push for deregulation. This goes on partly beneath public notice. Another major crash will come as deregulation proceeds, and there are reasons why the Fed may not be able to bail out the speculators (which included many of the biggest banks in 2008) and the economy. Of course the Fed did not actually prevent the crash of 2008, nor did anything it did cause the recovery to be better than in previous cycles. Fed Maestros are not a substitute for regulation to avoid crashes.
I do believe there are situations where the regulations, and associated regulatory process is a large obstacle to economic and social success. Let me provide an example, that I am personally familiar with/was involved in.
In San Francisco, one can learn the current zoning for piece of land. However, if one submits a project to the Planning Department, that conforms with 100% of the zoning requirements, its likely that project will not be approved. Rather, Planning will THEN start to apply additional, material, requirement such as additional, below market housing etc.
Further, the process in San Francisco take between 2.5 and 3 years JUST in Planning. I was part of a group of investors, that purchased a surface parking lot, close to a hospital, and we wanted to build 192 unit, apartments (including underground parking to replace the old lot). After a seven figure investment, and three years, in the end the Planning Department required, basically triple the zoned low income units, in exchange for a small density bonus. The project was not profitable with the new requirement. Today, that surface lot exists, rather than becoming a large apartment.
Also, between Planning and the Building department, it takes 3 years to get approval, and one must spend significant money (acquire the land, architect, engineering etc) just to get approval. Further, construction adds almost another 1.5 years. So, can you tell me what the economy, interest rates etc will be 4.5 years from today?
So yes, there are clear examples of a regulatory process that hinders the US economy/people wonder why San Francisco has such high rent....
Sounds to me like a classic example of regulatory capture plus Nimby. Was that in fact the case? Your details are a little vague.
ScentOfViolets - you may select your label. I am describing the entitlement process for San Francisco that has existed for the last 15 - 20 years: slow, opaque and full of surprises. I am CERTAIN a portion of San Francisco's high rents/'housing crisis' is a direct result of the planning process.
Final bit, while a Nimby like perspective is certainty real, we never got as far as public hearing: I am describing the bureaucratic process.
There is a difference between bad regulations and regulatory capture. So no, this is not just a matter of affixing different labels to the same thing.
As to why San Francisco has such a torturous permitting process, I give you Steve Randy Waldman's There’s no substitute for a substitute piece on Interfluidity.
It does sound like something is wrong. I'm not sure what "regulatory capture" means here, though. (I know what NIMBY is, though).
I would definitely like projects that conform to all published standards to get fast approval. This seems a no-brainer. Especially in a state where we have a housing crunch - which we do.
I think what's happening though, is that there is a lot of subsurface resistance to transitioning to higher-density living. There are significant impacts beyond any specific property to higher-density. It affects transportation planning, and trash removal, water, sewer and power demands.
Any of these might be issues, or might not.
See my linked response to middleoftheroaddem's reply above. They're not, shall we say, one of the more up front people commenting here and they've employed this sort of tactic before. Hence my request for more details. Sounds to me like they thought they were going to move fast and break things only they didn't do their homework as to where the bodies were buried.
ScentOfViolets - on many occasions you have called me names and criticized my point of view. You are entitled to your perspective. For what its worth, I have accurately (from my point of view) described a particular experience.
Of course, you don't need to believe me. Rather, I suggest research or ask virtually anyone who has tried to entitle market rate (this includes the required portion of units set aside for low income) apartments in San Francisco.
Sigh. You couldn't be arsed to read my link could you? There's a reason people don't think you're what your screen name implies.
Isn't the big decline in crime in the past few decades - often mentioned on this blog - an example of regulations, indeed the administrative state itself, at work for the greater good?
Rather surprised that didn't get mentioned here.
I would remove trains from your list of successful deregulations. The number of accidents, sometimes very dangerous accidents would not be accepted in any other rich country--and even in many poor countries.
Regulation ironically did damage the railroad sector, though mostly passenger rail (which has not been deregulated as it did not exist during our deregulation frenzy). Regulation about the weight and construction of passenger rail cars and engines has kept American commuter rail (and also Amtrak) lagging by probably 50 years or more behind competitor countries.
The Jones Act dates from 1920. Did the American shipping industry disappear then? If not maybe the reasons for the disappearance of the industry (if it has gone) should be looked for in later events.
But the important question with respect to the Jones act in the context of the Republican attack on regulation is what Trump would do about it. Would repealing it conform with his apparent principles of protectionism? Are there shipping or other interests which could offer him - and legislators - a big enough bribe to act one way or another? When Republicans propose something you have to look for what the big money wants.
"It’s crushing the free market; it’s like a boot on the neck of job creators and entrepreneurs and risk takers."
Tourette's syndrome.