By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--November 27, 2014
American Politics, News | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
The latest agenda includes 23 new “economically significant” rules–those with estimated economic impact of $100 million or more per year. That’s up from 21 in last year’s agenda. Those rules, as Batkins said, are the “big-ticket items.” Compliance costs could top $20 billion. For example, the Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to issue flammability standards for upholstered furniture that could cost more than $100 million. The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to issue a final rule on coal ash residue, expected Dec. 19, with compliance costs of $20 billion. Also to be finalized next year is the EPA’s set of rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.
But under the Clinton and Bush administrations, Batkins said, the Unified Agenda typically was a “normal, boring list of regulations” released each fall and spring. He said the Obama administration’s penchant for releasing new regulations near the holidays shows it views it “as a politically charged document.” . . . In a March report from The Heritage Foundation, regulatory policy experts James Gattuso and Diane Katz found that the Obama administration issued 157 major regulations during the president’s first five years in office. For the same period under President George W. Bush, the government issued 62 major regulations. Those 157 new rules, Gattuso and Katz found, cost Americans close to $73 billion. According to the American Action Forum, the $16 billion annual average for compliance costs is “tantamount to having a $160 billion tax increase over 10 years.”Don't get confused by the distinction between "major" regulations and all regulations. The total number of regulations is massive at 3,400, but the really major ones are where the federal government impacts your life in a major way, and the Obama Administration is the most aggressive yet at imposing these. So Happy Thanksgiving! Make sure you follow the rules, because there are more of them than ever.
View Comments
Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.