Red Tape and Pink Slips: Obama’s Imaginary Regulatory Reform

By Henry I. Miller

Government regulation is one of the nation’s few growth industries, making a mockery of the assertions and predictions of the Obama administration.

 

During his recent State of the Union speech, President Obama once again tried to assure Americans that he is committed to regulatory reform. But no student of federal regulation could possibly be convinced, because the facts clearly tell a different story.

The president isn’t alone in peddling the myth of regulatory reform. His regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, has been at it for months. He announced last August that rule changes would "save U.S. businesses billions of dollars in regulatory burdens." But, contrary to his assertions, the regulatory review that led to these changes was neither "unprecedentedly ambitious" nor likely to improve the nation’s current economic stagnation.

Sunstein claimed that regulatory relief will save businesses $10 billion over five years. To put these savings in context, the most recent analysis by the Small Business Administration estimated the cost of compliance with federal regulation (as of 2008) to be a staggering $1.75 trillion annually.

Read more: http://www.american.com/archive/2012/february/red-tape-and-pink-slips-obamas-imaginary-regulatory-reform