From Investors' Business Daily:
'Job Creation' Regulatory System Hasn't Materialized
Regulation: Over the first three years of each administration, Obama's White House created four times as many rules as the Bush administration. This is the regulatory regime that was supposed to bring growth and job creation.
A White House website video shows President Obama next to the stack of volumes comprising the ever-growing Federal Register of regulations, touting an executive order promising to "reduce burdens for American businesses and consumers when developing rules."
But three months ago, with a business-loathing political base in need of election-year red meat, Obama was in Osawatomie, Kan., mocking those who say, "If we just cut more regulations ... then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else."
A new report from the Heritage Foundation exposes Obama's false claims of relief, finding 106 new major rules costing more than $46 billion a year, with nearly $11 billion in one-off implementation costs — some five times the cost of regulation from the Bush White House's first three years.
The president has claimed that he's "approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his." But Heritage reveals these "fewer regulations" include:
New energy standards for refrigerators, freezers, clothes dryers and air conditioners; testing and labeling requirements for toys; limits on auto emissions of greenhouse gases; employer requirements for posting labor rules; more explicit warnings on cigarette packs; health plan eligibility standards; expanded employment requirements for the disabled; and higher minimum wages for foreign workers.
Plus, there are Dodd-Frank's six major rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission, five from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one from the Federal Reserve, and hundreds of Dodd-Frank rules that remain to be written.
In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency has five major new regulations, which will cost more than $4 billion a year. These rules include "stricter limits on industrial and commercial boilers and incinerators, at a total cost of $2.6 billion annually for compliance and $5.8 billion for one-time implementation costs."
Subscribe to the IBD Editorials PodcastAre these the "hundreds of regulatory reforms that will save businesses billions of dollars" that Obama boasted of in Kansas in December?
American business knows the difference between rhetoric and reality — and so do voters.
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