Tag Archives: government regulations

The Accomplishments Of The Biden Administration

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On January 2nd, The Daily Caller posted the following headline:

Biden Added $745 Billion Worth Of Regulations In 2023

Just what we needed.

The article reports:

The Biden administration promulgated over $745 billion worth of regulations in 2023, according to information supplied by Advancing American Freedom (AAF) to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Biden administration has used rulemaking procedures in agencies to enact several of its left-wing policy initiatives, such as stringent emissions standards to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles and student loan forgiveness plans. From Jan. 1 to Dec. 29 of 2023, the administration greatly exceeded both the Trump and Obama administrations in terms of the regulations it issued, adding to the 743 rules since 2021, according to data from AAF, a government regulations watchdog.

Remember that when President Trump took office, he began removing regulations in order to allow the American economy to grow. What impact have these new regulations put on by the Biden administration had on economic growth?

The article notes:

“Since January 1, the federal government has published $745.2 billion in total net costs (with $129.2 billion in new costs from finalized rules) and 251.3 million hours of net annual paperwork burden increases (with 60.5 million hours in coming from final rules),” AAF told the DCNF. “[T]he Biden Administration heads into 2024 with to-date final rule cost and paperwork totals exceeding those of the Obama Administration by $173.7 billion and 91.4 million hours, respectively.”

The article reports:

Moreover, in the last working week of the administration from Dec. 26 to Dec. 29, which was shortened due to Christmas Day, the administration added $45.6 billion in total costs and added 43.4 million annual paperwork burden hours, according to AAF.

The article includes the following statement:

Today, we released new standards for fridges & freezers that reflect a joint agreement with manufacturers & advocacy groups.

This will save Americans $5B/year & underscores our ongoing work with industry partners to promote innovation & cut energy costs.https://t.co/0Q9UKTRB31 pic.twitter.com/mXWh6SxR2U

— Secretary Jennifer Granholm (@SecGranholm) December 29, 2023

Can we please have a new President in 2025 before this administration can do any more damage.

When Regulations Interfere With Solutions

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Yesterday The Union Leader, a New Hampshire newspaper, posted an article about the possible shortages of medical supplies and hospital beds during the coronavirus epidemic.

The article notes:

ACROSS the country, state leaders have raised the alarm over the lack of enough beds should the COVID-19 pandemic create a surge in serious and critical cases. They are concerned that they simply won’t have enough hospital beds to care for ill patients and are taking drastic steps to “flatten the curve” – spreading out the timeline of the disease so that the health care system can manage the influx of new cases.

This is just as true in New Hampshire as across the country. However, the prime reason we don’t have more hospital beds is not a lack of demand, but government regulation.

According to U.S. Census data, New Hampshire’s population has grown by 48% since the 1980 census. However, the last new hospital to open in the Granite State did so in 1983.

The reason why our state hasn’t built more hospitals since then isn’t lack of demand. With a growing and aging population, our health care needs have gone up, not down.

The answer why we haven’t seen more hospitals and, thus, more hospital beds is because of government regulations that were intentionally designed to limit competition and choice. Sadly, these regulations have been effective in achieving those goals.

For many years, the prime culprit from new hospital development was the state’s Certificate of Need (CON) board. For someone to get a license to build a new hospital, they would have to go before this board and hope to get a government permission slip to have the opportunity to begin. Unsurprisingly, the CON board became a protection racket for the state’s existing hospitals to stop new development.

Thanks to the work of Americans for Prosperity activists and critical policy champions like Senator John Reagan and former Representative Marilinda Garcia, New Hampshire was able to put an end to the CON board in 2016.

The article cites some other regulations that limit the number of hospital beds:

One regulation forces anyone who wants to open a hospital to have a 24 hour per day, seven day per week emergency department. Given that emergency departments are the most expensive and toughest to staff part of any hospital, this is a huge barrier to opening a new facility.

And, like most cronyism, existing hospitals made sure this requirement doesn’t apply to any hospital that had its license before the law was passed.

Another regulation forces any new hospital to take reimbursement from all payers, regardless of whether doing so makes sense for that hospital’s business model. Across the country, cash-only facilities are thriving, providing lower cost alternatives to patients. But, under state law, they can’t operate in the Granite State.

Finally, one state regulation provides for a 15-mile radius monopoly zone around smaller hospitals in more rural areas. This guarantees that anyone outside of the southeastern part of New Hampshire will never see another hospital being built in their community, or anywhere near them.

While changing these laws won’t help us fight the COVID-19 virus, it’s high time the state legislature begins to remove these barriers to help us deal with the next pandemic. Our public health infrastructure has been unnecessarily hobbled, not by disease, but by special interests.

North Carolina is one of the states with Certificate of Need (CON) laws. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 35 states and Washington, D.C. operate a CON program with wide variation state-to-state. I suspect that number is high–they may be including laws that are not technically CON laws. At any rate, North Carolina has been trying to repeal its CON law for a number of years. CON laws interfere with the free market and artificially inflate medical costs by creating monopolies. One way to lower medical costs without sacrificing quality of care would be to remove CON laws. However, hospitals like their monopolies.

If You Truly Believed This, Would It Change Your Behavior?

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about the behavior of people who sincerely believe in climate change (or at least claim to).

The article reports:

We keep hearing how global warming is the biggest crisis facing mankind today. But a new yearlong study finds that those ringing the alarm bells the loudest are the least likely to change their own behavior. They just want everyone else to.

The study divided 600 adults who reported on their climate-change beliefs into three groups: “skeptical,” “cautiously worried” and “highly concerned.”

Then the researchers — from the University of Michigan and Cornell University — tracked how often they reported doing things like recycling, using public transportation, buying environmentally friendly consumer products, and reusing shopping bags. And they asked about support for government mandates like CO2 emission reduction, gasoline taxes and renewable energy subsidies. The Journal of Environmental Psychology published the findings.

The findings are not a surprise to many of us.

The article reports the results:

The researchers found that the “highly concerned” group was the least likely to take individual action, but they were the most insistent on government action. The “skeptical” group, in contrast, was the most likely to recycle, use public transportation and do other environmentally sound things all on their own. Skeptics were least likely to endorse costly government regulations and mandates.

“Belief in climate change,” the researchers explained, “predicted support for government policies, but did not generally translate to individual-level, self-reported pro-environmental behavior. ” (emphasis mine)

Two notable examples of spouting climate change rhetoric but creating an unbelievable carbon footprint are Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio. Both live in luxurious homes which use much more electricity than the average American, and both travel on private jets. I have no problem with this–they have earned what they have. However, if you are going to support government regulations that negatively impact people earning a fraction of what you make, you really should practice what you preach.

Government Intervention Will Eventually Eliminate The American Fishing Industry

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Yesterday Hot Air posted an article on its website called, “A Fisherman’s tale of fighting Uncle Sam.” The article deals with a lawsuit that has been making its way through the legal system since 2015 and may be coming to the Supreme Court later this year.

The article reports:

It involves a small volume fisherman who is fighting back against onerous regulations from the Department of Commerce which are threatening to put him (and so many other family operations) out of business. David Goethel is in the fight of his life because new government regulations are costing him more per day than he can generally earn in profit from his fishing operation. Cause of Action Institute (CoAI) is working on this case and provides the details.

Meet New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel. The federal government is destroying Mr. Goethel’s industry through overregulation and forcing ground-fishermen like himself to pay $700 per day to have authorities monitor them on their boats. Even the government estimates these additional costs would put 60% of the industry out of business. CoAI is helping Mr. Goethel fight back through the courts to save his livelihood.

This is a story that is being told by commercial fisherman with family businesses who are under attack by federal and state regulators making legal changes that favor either sports fishermen or large commercial fishing enterprises. This over-regulation needs to stop. The state and federal government is attacking the family fisherman while at the same time over-fishing by foreign fleets continues off of our coasts. What is the government trying to accomplish?

The video below provides the background to the story:

The article concludes:

Besides the gross unfairness of the situation, I’m left wondering how this was the only solution the government could come up with. This is 2017, not 1817. Even if you feel you need to peer over the shoulders of these fisherman every time they leave port, do we really have to station a human being on every boat? Couldn’t there be a camera hooked up via satellite using Skype or something so a single person back on shore could monitor multiple boats?

Goethael has already been through two rounds of court action protesting this crippling regulatory burden but has been rejected in the lower level courts. Thus far they haven’t even been ruling on the merits of the case, but rather on a technicality, claiming that the plaintiff didn’t file soon enough after the regulation went into effect. (This ignores the fact that the government didn’t transfer the cost of these monitors to the fishermen until much later.) CoAI has filed a petition for writ of certiorari urging the Supreme Court to take up the case and rule on the merits and consider the damage that this regulatory albatross is doing to an industry as old as the nation itself.

If we have reached the point where we have surrendered so much of our freedom that the state or federal government can put small businessmen out of business, it is time to take a second look at our government. Is our government operating under the principles our Founding Fathers set forth? I think not.

If You Really Want Companies To Hire New Employees Don’t Put Obstacles In Their Way !

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Yesterday Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article noting that the jobs bill proposed by President Obama has a provision that would make it illegal for businesses to discriminate against the already-unemployed while making hiring decisions. No wonder lawyers love this President!

The article reports:

The proposed language is found in a section of the bill titled “Prohibition of Discrimination in Employment on the Basis of an Individual’s Status as Unemployed.” That section would also make it illegal for employers to request that employment agencies take into account a person’s unemployed status.

It would also allow aggrieved job-seekers to seek damages if they have been discriminated against. This provision in particular prompted Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) to argue that Obama’s proposal is aimed at creating a new, special class of people who can sue companies.

“So if you’re unemployed, and you go to apply for a job and you’re not hired for that job, see a lawyer,” Gohmert said on the House floor. “You might be able to file a claim because you got discriminated against because you’re unemployed.”

If you can’t make a living by becoming employed, you may be able to make a living by suing anyone who doesn’t hire you when you apply for a job.

The article concludes:

All this provision does is give those who don’t get the position a big invitation to file a lawsuit, especially against the deep-pocketed companies we’re hoping to convince to hire people now.  That will certainly benefit the lawyers who take these cases in order to get a piece of the shakedown money they can get out of these companies, but all that does is heighten the risk of hiring for businesses enormously.  If a company has a position that attracts 20 applicants, they have to consider the possibility that the new hire will cost them compensation for one employee and settlements for 19 non-employees, unless the business goes out of their way to hire the person who has been unemployed the very longest and therefore doesn’t have the same market value for their labor or for the company.

If you want to see the economy grow, we need to cut regulations, not add more. This is another headache for any company that is considering hiring a new employee. This regulation hinders job creation–it does not encourage it. The biggest thing we can do to grow the economy is cut