Posted on 11/15/2011 9:08:47 AM PST by mdittmar
Republican Economist Says GOP Spreads the Falsehood Because It Has No Plan to Create Jobs
Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid made the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the Republican-propagated myth of “job-killing regulations.” Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:
It’s impossible to open a newspaper or watch cable news these days without hearing my Republican colleagues talk about the evils of “job-killing regulations.”
Each day they arrive on the Senate floor to rail against the safeguards that keep our water clean, our air fresh and our mines safe.
According to the GOP, those safeguards are actually the source of all this nation’s economic woes – these horrible, time consuming government regulations that hinder the economic progress of America.
The Republicans would have you believe that the common-sense rules that check the greed of Wall Street banks, keep huge corporations honest and stop Big Oil’s unnecessary risk taking are also causing small businesses great harm.
Indeed, that would be a terrible thing – that is, if it were true.
While it’s proper to guard against and remove onerous regulations, my Republican friends have yet to produce a single shred of evidence that the regulations they hate so much do the broad economic harms they claim. That’s because there is none.
Conversely, there’s plenty of evidence to prove those regulations save lives, prevent asthma attacks and ensure Mom and Pops face a fair fight against multinational corporations and moneyed interest groups.
And there’s plenty of evidence to prove that disasters like the BP oil spill and the financial crisis of 2008 could have been prevented by stronger government watchdogs.
But Republicans aren’t relying on evidence as they propagate the myth of the job-killing regulation. They’re relying on repetition.
Bruce Bartlett, an advisor to President Ronald Reagan and a Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush, is a trusted, conservative voice on economics. He offered these strong words on the regulation monster under Big Business’ bed:
“No hard evidence is offered for this claim; it is simply asserted as self-evident and repeated endlessly throughout the conservative echo chamber… 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.”
But why use regulations proven to protect the health of every man, woman and child in this nation as a scapegoat? What are the origins of the myth?
I believe – as Bartlett does – that Republicans are attacking regulation because they don’t have a plan to create jobs and turn our economy around.
While Democrats have been pushing time-tested remedies for a flagging economy, such as infrastructure investments or middle-class tax cuts, our Republican colleagues have been peddling a cure-all tonic of deregulation.
Bartlett says, “People are increasingly concerned about unemployment, but Republicans have nothing to offer them.”
They’ve offered up the specter of overreaching government regulation to distract from the fact that they haven’t offered a single idea for how to put America back to work.
And they use the argument to justify rolling back everything from clear air and water safeguards to Wall Street and health insurance industry reforms.
What’s more, they’ve spread the tall tale that removing these regulations and letting Big Business do exactly as it pleases will not only prevent job losses, but actually create new jobs.
Bartlett called that logical leap “nonsense.”
“It’s just made up,” he said. So, let’s talk fact, not fiction.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which asks executives why they downsized, only a tiny fraction of layoffs have anything at all to do with tighter regulation.
Last year, only three tenths of one percent of people who lost their jobs were let go principally because of government regulation or intervention. On the other hand, a quarter of them were laid off because of lack of business.
And in a recent survey by the Small Business Majority, only 13% of small business owners cited regulation as their biggest concern. Half said economic uncertainty was their greatest challenge.
That’s why Democrats have been offering real solutions to our jobs crisis and policies that help small firms hire, grow and thrive again.
The truth is we have enough to worry about in these tough economic times.
We can’t allow the myth to distract us from the very real crisis of high unemployment facing this nation.
I don’t see why give dem homepage rants publicity
Ah,maybe cause they control the Senate.
Harding figured it out in 1920..
Harding cut the government’s budget nearly in HALF between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding’s approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third. The Federal Reserve’s activity, moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one economic historian puts it, “Despite the severity of the contraction, the Fed did not move to use its powers to turn the money supply around and fight the contraction.” 2 By the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and was only 2.4 percent by 1923.
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1319&loc=r
BTW..the Feds know there are WAY more of them than necessary..which is why they fight with We The People over the border..they think more bodies in the country will provide them more cover.
a more accurate headline: “Reid beieves that red tape is good for business.”
Regulations don’t kill jobs. Why right here in Boston a Ground Breaking was done for a 12 story building after only SEVEN YEARS of Red tape.
And Harry’s real solutions have been working so well for the last 3 years.
Democrats real solutions are to throw money away so fast no tax in the world could replace it.
But what really pisses me off is that Senate Republicans will sit in their seats and listen to this s**t and say nothing in response.
Harry claims the Republicans are complaining about regulations. Who are they complaining to? I haven’t heard a word out of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the last 6 months, in fact I had to look up who he was because he says nothing and does nothing.
We no longer have a two party system, We have Democrats and RINO stooges./
There are thousands and thousands of first hand eyewitness accounts of business owners who were run out of business by massive regulations. What better evidence can one ask for?
Mr Reid you are a lying sack of crap.
Worse you think the American people to be stupid sheep.
Anyone that has tried to run a small business in America or know anyone that has run a small business KNOWS for a fact that Government regulations, rules, restrictions, red tape and taxes can strangle many small businesses and certainly makes growth very difficult. And your political party has been behind the vast majority of job stunting government interference. So STFU your time has passed.....
You mean the same businesses and economists that DIDN’T see the housing bubble burst coming?? Those economists??
ahahhaahahhahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The same ones trying to tell us there is no inflation?????
bunch of d@mn liars.
For some unknown reason, the new Bruce Bartlett is always there to help when the democrats need an out. I'll take the word of successful businessman Steve Wynn (a democrat), and all those other Fortune 500 CEO's who have publicly declared that Obama's regulations have created an environment of uncertainty that is killing the economy. Unless Bartlett can show us where he's created a company worth billions, and that employees thousands, he's just another economist looking for attention. Bashing Republicans to the liberal media is a proven method for attracting the attention this man so desperately needs.
Yu are posting from a crackpot website.
Who cares. Their lying rants should be suppressed as far as possible.
It's not that the regulations don't have a cost or don't hurt our competitiveness against countries that don't care if their people are killed by industry. It's that you can remove all of the regulations and business taxes and you still aren't going to compete with the likes of China that basically has slave labor wages and government owns the businesses. The difference in wage labor dwarfs everything.
I believe – as Bartlett does – that Republicans are attacking regulation because they don’t have a plan to create jobs and turn our economy around.
This is exactly right!
While Democrats have been pushing time-tested remedies for a flagging economy, such as infrastructure investments or middle-class tax cuts, our Republican colleagues have been peddling a cure-all tonic of deregulation.
This is mostly a lie.
The democrats are pushing time-tested remedies. But they substitute political graft and cronyism for infrastructure projects. What they say and what they do are two different things.
'Rats have been pushing tax increases not tax cuts.
The simple fact that not one republican senator has ever slapped the crap out of this little slimy nerd is proof they’re all in this together at our expense.
I do not want the GOP to create jobs. I do not want the Dems to create jobs. I do not want congress, or my governor or any government agency to create jobs. It is not their job to create jobs. If it was their job to create jobs then we should be voting in CEO's and cutting profit sharing deals with them. I am voting for legislators not CEO'S.
I want our government to establish an environment so we can compete internationally and be as productive as possible with the least amount of cost. If our taxes need to be lowered to compete then they should be lowered if the tax rates do not affect us competitively then they should be left alone. Likewise, if we have regulations that are cost effective and protect losses of life and property then by all means we should leave those alone. However, if we have regulations which hinder productivity and jobs to protect us from something inconsequential or from something the market will achieve if left alone then these should be eliminated.
For Reid to assume that all regulations are helpful is absurd. Even ones which were good and helpful may have a shelf life.
I believe – as Bartlett does – that Republicans are attacking regulation because they don’t have a plan to create jobs and turn our economy around.
This is exactly right!
He called Harry Reid, a friend for 40 years over Obama Care and other regulations and Harry hung up on him.
Steve said it is easier to do business in Macau and he can treat his employees better there than the US.
This is exactly right!
Wrong. Their "plan" is to reduce the regulatory burden and tax rates to permit companies to expand and grow. That will create new jobs. If you choose to call that "not a plan," fine -- we need no other "plan."
Guess who they are closely allied with? The Center for American Progress.
What a surprise.
I believe Reid would be correct in that assessment. “The people” shape the United States government, not politicians.
Every two years “the people” have the ability to shape the Federal Government into their own likeness. Some are fooled, but that is their own fault. Unfortunately most do not realize they are being fooled and again, this is their own darn fault; especially in this day and age of massive search engines as well as free information that can easily be gathered.
http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/files/2009/08/6274.jpg
In 2006, he published Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (ISBN 0-385-51827-7), which is critical of the Bush Administration’s economic policies as departing from traditional conservative principles. He compared the second Bush to Richard M. Nixon as “two superficially conservative presidents who enacted liberal programs to buy votes for reelection.”
In Bartlett’s latest book, The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward, he embraces Keynesian ideas, stating that while supply-side economics was appropriate for the 1970s and 1980s, supply side arguments do not fit contemporary conditions.
During an interview on CNN on August 19, 2011 Bartlett stated that presidential candidate Rick Perry “is an idiot, and I don’t think anybody would disagree with that.” The comment was in reference to Perry’s earlier assertion that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s actions would be “almost treasonous” if the Fed were to print more money before the election to stimulate the econonmy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Bartlett
OK republicans, take him up on his challenge. Quote chapter and verse of the regulations that delay progress by eating up time and hinder and stop progress. Start maybe with that oil pipeline up north. Detail the costs involved and jobs lost. Enter it in the Congressional record and then another one every day that Congress is in session. Call his bluff and show what a liar he is - or are you too busy with your insider stock trading?
Democrats are good at this. Note that Reid also cites Bruce Bartlett as a "conservative" source, when he hasn't been any such thing for a long time (having gone through an Arianna Huffington-like conversion to the Dark Side).
Harry the shameful is right in a left handed way; with out the byzantine regulatory systems we have in place today, millions of lawyers and tax accountants would be out of work.
Didn’t Senator Rubio recently give a speech about not finding the businessmen who wants MORE regulations so he can begin hiring..
It's a plan, but completely insufficient to create jobs. To create jobs, you're going to have to reverse some of the offshoring that we have done.
Energy: We need to be drilling. We need to be building nuclear plants. We need to be preparing sites for even more future fission and/or fusion plants. We need to be preparing the grid to make it redundant and terrorist proof. We do need to be doing particle research in hopes of discovering new energy sources. And we need to be doing research in alternative energies, but only research, no more funding mass rollouts of unviable technologies.
Labor: Close the border. Deport the illegals. Cut the H1b's.
Raw Materials: We've got plenty of most.
Technological know how: Bring back production to the U.S. and everything from Engineering to marketing follows. Quit training as many foreigners in our colleges. Especially in high tech stuff.
International trade: Raise import tariffs which are at historic lows. This will bring production back creating both manual and high tech jobs. Tariffs should be adjusted as unemployment drops so that we can take advantage of cheap foreign labor, but not to the extent that it puts our own people out of work.
It’s no wonder the government is broke. I went to a federal biulding today, and had to go through two checkpoints with guards. The federal employee I dealt with was behind bullet-proof glass. I live in what is considered by most to be a small town. What’s it cost to hire all these cousins and brothers onto the federal payroll across the nation? Here’s an idea, get rid of all the security guards. And spare me the “what-if” stories about federal employees getting gunned down at work. They could get hit by a car on the way to work. Maybe they should all ride in armored buses.
We've seen how well adding regulations and letting Big Government do exactly as it pleases has prevented job losses and actually created new jobs. LOL!
We could use a hard drive factory or two as well!
http://www.infoworld.com/t/computer-hardware/hard-drive-prices-skyrocket-177515
Hey Harry, how would you refute Kalifonia’s economic dilemma that is clearly a result of OVER regulation to placate state unionism and the green crowd? Somebody needs to throw water on this putrid lying POS. Just my opinion.
Quite true. Ive often wondered what is the point of the bulletproof glass bit. If you really wanted to cap a guy, monitor him till he gets off of work, follow him home, ring the doorbell, bang. End of story.
He has PCR disease.
Then again, maybe he just went crazy like PCR.
With a gold standard you cannot create the money illusion.
There is still fractional reserve banking under a gold standard, or were you thinking about something else?
They receive "strange new respect".
I’m talking about inflation. I don’t mind fractional reserve banking and actually think it benefits America, but only when banking is separated from the investment house. That is banking should be very a boring business.
The money illusion, as I was taught, is inflation. Printing money gives the appearance at first and in the short run that consumers have ‘more’ to spend. Eventually reality catches up to you and the pizza puff you bought for $.79 thirty years ago now costs $2.49 (those are actual prices).
There’s also the bond illusion which looks the same, but is simply future taxes wasted.
It’s possible to have inflation under a gold standard.
It’s more likely we’d have deflation under a gold standard.
That would be much more damaging than inflation.
This man is insane. Nevada citizens must be too.
So I suppose all those regulations that make a specific business illegal, is not costing us jobs. (ex - Online poker).
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