Shamelessly Lying About Regulation

In case anyone forgot, it was the DE-regulation of Wall Street in 1999 that caused the Great Recession and destroyed 10 million American jobs. Since 1935, the Glass-Steagall Act had protected bankers from their own greed and stupidity by keeping commercial banks out of the stock gambling business. Repealing Glass-Steagall handed the keys of the economy to the drunk, stoned teenagers of the finance industry and let them take off.

Regulations protect not just consumers (clean air, clean water, safe food, safe drugs) but also businesses - especially small businesses who need protection from the corporate behemoths who would otherwise crush them.

Steve Benen:

There’s been a fair amount of work done lately to help demonstrate just how wrong Republicans are about regulations holding the economy back — this paper from the Economic Policy Institute’s Lawrence Mishel is terrific — but folks should definitely take the time to review this piece from Bruce Bartlett.

As Bartlett, an economist and a veteran of the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations, explained, Republicans have been told to argue that freeing the private sector of consumer safeguards and worker protections will reduce “uncertainty.” Unfortunately for the GOP, from a policy perspective, they’re living in fantasy land.

Evidence supporting Mr. Cantor’s contention that deregulation would increase unemployment is very weak. For some years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has had a program that tracks mass layoffs. In 2007, the program was expanded, and businesses were asked their reasons for laying off workers. Among the reasons offered was “government regulations/intervention.” There is only partial data for 2007, but we have data since then through the second quarter of this year. […]

As one can see, the number of layoffs nationwide caused by government regulation is minuscule and shows no evidence of getting worse during the Obama administration. Lack of demand for business products and services is vastly more important.

These results are supported by surveys. During June and July, Small Business Majority asked 1,257 small-business owners to name the two biggest problems they face. Only 13 percent listed government regulation as one of them. Almost half said their biggest problem was uncertainty about the future course of the economy — another way of saying a lack of customers and sales.

Surveys from major news outlets, including conservative institutions like the Wall Street Journal, and the National Federation of Independent Business found the same thing: the private sector is concerned about customers and demand, not regulations.

Bruce concluded, “In my opinion, regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. In other words, it is a simple case of political opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment.”

An Associated Press analysis published this week reached the identical conclusion: the private sector isn’t being held back by regulations; companies “aren’t hiring because there isn’t enough consumer demand.” Republican economic policies, of course, intend to weaken demand, on purpose, because they simply don’t believe this is the problem behind weak growth.

This is Big Government regulation:

From AP:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Federal regulators are seeking comments as they target a hazard in underground coal mines blamed for dozens of deaths.

A proposed rule from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration addresses systems meant to warn miners when they get too close to continuous mining machines.
The agency is holding a Thursday public hearing for the proposal in Charleston.

Officials say run-ins with these machines killed 30 miners and injured another 220 between 1984 and last year. Most of those killed were operating these huge machines via remote control.

Note that none of Kentucky's Big Coal Apologists, those Brave Defenders of Our Miners Against Job Killing Regulation, Senators Mitch Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, not to mention Governor Steve Beshear and his challenger David Williams, have anything to say about this blatant horrific Murder of Our FreeDumbs by the commiemuslinkenyanterrist Usurper and his socialist minions in the bureaucracy.