Because why trust impersonal market forces when you can trust in the goodness and wisdom of the change you asked for as implemented by lawmakers and carried out by bureaucrats?
WSJ:
President-elect Barack Obama is signaling by a combination of words and deeds that his administration will toughen regulations at federal agencies that oversee consumer products, environmental policy and workplace safety.Mr. Obama has named a number of people to his transition teams for regulatory agencies who favor a firmer government hand in overseeing industry behavior. In addition, Mr. Obama has indicated in a series of pre-election letters to a big federal employee union that he intends to take a more pro-union approach on labor questions than his predecessor, and give agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency more money.
Because more money always equates to better production. Just look at the schools in DC!
“I think the agenda is going to be bold,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who co-chaired Mr. Obama’s national presidential campaign and is on the short list to take his Senate seat.
The transition team is looking at a number of “activists and advocates” to lead key agencies, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the EPA and the Department of Labor, she said.
Rep. Schakowsky noted that addressing the worsening economy would take precedence over regulatory overhauls. Business groups in Washington have warned Mr. Obama that imposing increased regulatory burdens on already suffering industries could exacerbate the economic slump.
Still, Mr. Obama has put himself on record in favor of a more robust government approach to a variety of regulatory issues in a series of letters to members of the American Federation of Government Employees in the weeks prior to the election.
The AFGE has placed six people on the transition team, and is recommending overhauls of the EPA and Department of Labor, among other agencies, said AFGE President John Gage.
“We’ve been in contact with the transition team…on specific agencies, whenever we request it. They’ll be open to some ideas we have, and I hope we would receive a little notice before a particular assistant secretary or so is put in,” Mr. Gage said.
[...]
Rep. Schakowsky said EPA regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act was a strong possibility in the Obama Administration. The new administration will bring “much more emphasis on renewable energy and less emphasis on [effective] subsidies for Big Oil,” she said.
— Instead, the subsidies will go to Ethanol and other such non-starters, while oil and coal are punished for CO2 emissions, meaning higher consumer prices, and higher operating prices for industry — all at a time when the economy is at best precarious.
But hey: gotta pay back your supporters, right? CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN!
Many business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, oppose EPA regulation of CO2. “They’re [EPA officials] willing to regulate everything from the industrial sector to warehouses, offices, schools and churches,” says William Kovacs, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce.
One potential candidate to head the EPA is California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols, who led her state’s effort to implement a state law calling for a 30% cut in greenhouse-gas emissions from new cars by 2016. Last December, the EPA’s current administrator, Stephen Johnson, denied California permission to go ahead with its greenhouse-gas rules. His decision was opposed by many EPA career staffers. California is now suing the EPA in federal court in Washington, D.C., to overturn that decision.
Ms. Nichols has frequently sparred with the nation’s auto makers, who oppose state-level regulation of such emissions as tantamount to letting states regulate fuel economy, traditionally a federal responsibility. She confirmed in an interview that she has had discussions with the Obama transition team, but declined to list her priorities should she be appointed, beyond “restoring confidence [in] EPA science and that EPA is a science-based agency.”
Chortle
Workplace-safety regulations and employee family-leave policies will be up for an overhaul, Mr. Obama and his advisers have suggested.
In the letters to AFGE union employees at federal agencies, Mr. Obama promises a series of regulatory specifics.
“In my Department of Labor, the Administrator of Mine Safety and Health will be an advocate for miners’ safety and health, not for the mining companies’ bottom lines,” Mr. Obama wrote to agency employees.
Translation: demonizing businesses, siding with labor — even if that means the same kind of problems we’re now seeing in the US auto industry.
“We’ve seen a more mature and prudent view of how important coal is to the economy, and what the consequences would be if the industry is seriously damaged,” said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. “How the safety issue will play out is anyone’s guess right now.”
Question: won’t safety be moot once Obama holds to his promise to bankrupt the coal industry?
At the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the new administration has said it favors doubling of the agency’s budget, a streamlining of the nation’s product-recall system that reduces companies’ say in the process, and higher fines for safety violations.
Mr. Obama’s home state of Illinois has the highest lead-poisoning rate of any state. The Illinois congressional delegation — from which several of his closest advisers are drawn — pioneered the toughest children’s product lead standards in a generation. Mr. Obama backed such controls both in Illinois and at the federal level.
Pam Gilbert, a product-safety lawyer on the Obama transition team, is on the short list to chair the agency, where she was executive director in the Clinton era. She favors working with industry on enforcement, while pressing for the toughest possible standards.
No problems with that, so far as I can tell. The key being a willingness to actually work with industry; the compromises created by that kind of give and take nearly always work better than top down models, and we already have, by consumer product safety standards, a very robust regulatory apparatus in place. I don’t see why the agency’s budget needs to be doubled to affect a streamlining process — but then, I’m not a government worker.
“By design, the Bush administration slashed positions, [so] there is a crying need to staff up with experts. The agency isn’t going to be able to accomplish its mission until that happens,” Ms. Gilbert said in an interview before joining the transition team.
Well, I think the best thing to do is take a wait and see approach with all this — though the signs do indeed point to a labor friendly administration, which could, if not handled well, create a regulatory culture that will upset economic growth, and so end up costing jobs.
I don’t think anyone is “against clean air” or “in favor of less safety.” The question is, how much meddling does government need to do in order to achieve the desired effects? Less is often more — and a climate of byzantine regulatory glut will do nobody any favors, save for the bureaucrats necessary to populate the oversight strata and those unionized laborers who benefit in the short term from increased bargaining powers.
Discuss. While I head to Macy’s one day sale and buy shit produced by Mexican day laborers while they are still affordable to people who don’t work in Hollywood. Or sit on regulatory committees.
(h/t Terry H)
Comment by Carin on 11/19 @ 9:23 am #
You know what I think this country needs? More government employees and “experts”. Yes, that’s going to work out great!
Comment by maggie katzen on 11/19 @ 9:23 am #
um, this doesn’t exactly inspire confidence… or are they not as related as they seem?
Comment by Carin on 11/19 @ 9:24 am #
I thought O! was going to streamline government?
Comment by mojo on 11/19 @ 9:27 am #
Tune up them banjos, boys.
Comment by D Kite on 11/19 @ 9:30 am #
>staff up with experts…
I hear there are all kinds of well educated experienced young people available. They worked for Merrill Lynch, AIG, Lehman and others. They already live in the center of the universe, and there are probably empty buildings available for them.
They can apply their magic touch to the remainder of the economy.
Derek (and many of them donated to Democrats. Victims all of them)
Comment by Sdferr on 11/19 @ 9:36 am #
There is a certain whimsical sense to bailing out the automakers with one hand while throttling the life out of them with the other, you gotta admit.
Comment by geoffb on 11/19 @ 9:37 am #
Our very own Government by nomenklatura.
The New Committee Men are assembling for Hope®, for Change®, for the “ONE”®.
A whole lotta “Good™” is going to be shoveled into our fans. The ever overflowing cesspool is open for business.
Comment by Carin on 11/19 @ 9:43 am #
here is a certain whimsical sense to bailing out the automakers with one hand while throttling the life out of them with the other, you gotta admit.
Well, actually I say the whimsy would be in not bailing them out (thus, watching GM go bankrupt) while increasing the power of unions in order to squeeze the remaining two.
Yes, I know it was the legacy costs that ruined you, but the job isn’t done until ALL the car companies are gone!
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/19 @ 9:46 am #
Get ready for the depression to come, folks.
Comment by Dash Rendar on 11/19 @ 9:47 am #
Well, the same tactics that got us into the subprime mess continue:
“The fundamental policy issue is our disappointment that funds are not being used out of the $700 billion to supplement mortgage foreclosure reduction,” Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) said in his opening remarks.
Mr. Paulson agreed it is “very important to stop the cascade of foreclosures” but resisted the entreaties to use the Troubled Asset Relief Program to address the issue. He noted that the Bush administration and financial companies have put in place a number of programs to help cash-strapped borrowers and said the best way to address foreclosures is “to increase access to lower-cost mortgage lending.”
Paulson, Bernanke Rebuked on Hill
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/19 @ 9:47 am #
Ford’s Iron Law of Government Intervention:
“Every time any government interferes with a market, it fucks it up.”
Comment by Sdferr on 11/19 @ 9:48 am #
You wouldn’t rather call that grim determination, Carin?
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/19 @ 9:50 am #
I’ll see if I can dig out my Dad’s recipe for bathtub gin.
There should be a market for that.
Comment by Dan Collins on 11/19 @ 9:53 am #
I think Andrew Sullivan’s in favor of less safety, Jeff.
Comment by SDN on 11/19 @ 10:00 am #
Link to wsj doesn’t work.
Comment by SDN on 11/19 @ 10:01 am #
Every company affected by these bozos needs to close down operations here and leave the country for India, Mexico, etc…. and make sure their workers know why.
Comment by Dan Collins on 11/19 @ 10:03 am #
You’ll like this, SDN.
Comment by Carin on 11/19 @ 10:05 am #
ou wouldn’t rather call that grim determination, Carin?
I suppose we should admire their tenacity. And – where is Granholm during these trying times for Michigan? Israel.
Honestly, there is another indication of how biased the media is. If that were a Republican over there playing footsies with “water power” investors, she’d be skewered as a Nero who fiddled while Rome burned.
Comment by geoffb on 11/19 @ 10:10 am #
The people who did this well, A Government So Inept It Couldn’t Make A Profit On A Whorehouse, will surely make for a great future for us all.
If we are all “Chicago” now will that be an improvement for Detroit?
Comment by happyfeet on 11/19 @ 10:10 am #
This link should work maybe. Jeff’s one is broken I think.
Comment by mojo on 11/19 @ 10:14 am #
When you can’t make a profit selling pussy and booze, it’s time to call it quits.
Comment by Dan Collins on 11/19 @ 10:15 am #
Carin–Phew! Nero! For a moment there, I thought . . .
Comment by Dan Collins on 11/19 @ 10:15 am #
Is it unionized pussy?
Comment by Sdferr on 11/19 @ 10:27 am #
They had to join the ILG(less)WU, Dan.
Comment by Pablo Abu Jamal on 11/19 @ 10:31 am #
Acorn at FEC. Ayers at Education. Medea Benjamin at Defense. Kevorkian at HHS.
This should be fun.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/19 @ 10:32 am #
Government is like a new toy to these people and these are not people what know how to take care of their toys.
Comment by Dan Collins on 11/19 @ 10:35 am #
Someone left the cake out in the rain.
Fucker.
Comment by cfbleachers on 11/19 @ 10:36 am #
On the bright side, the sale of red tape should reach epic proportions.
Lawsuits against companies for every imagined illness and slight will skyrocket, necessitating the appointment of more judges to enforce more rules to pay out insurance dollars by bankrupted companies taken over by bureaucrats who tax more people to pay for lawsuits against companies for every imagined illness and slight…..
Comment by cfbleachers on 11/19 @ 10:48 am #
A Government So Inept It Couldn’t Make A Profit On A Whorehouse
Have you seen leftist women? I’m not sure that there is necessarily a one to one correlation between being ugly enough to scare a bulldog off a meat wagon and hating this country so much you attack it incessantly…but, just saying…finding a knothole at the appropriate height in a saguaro was probably preferable to picturing Janet Reno in fishnets and stiletto heels…with less danger of permanent thorn damage
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/19 @ 11:17 am #
or are they [Obama - lead poisoning] not as related as they seem?
Failure of Rezko Estates keeps poor people in places with lead paint, which children then eat?
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/19 @ 11:18 am #
The Department of Labor?
WOOHOO! European 20 hour work week!
When do I get my 9 weeks vacation?
Oh, and buy Ethenol!
Why?
Cuz fuck starving third worlders, that’s why!
Stupid fat bellied African kids.
No corn for you!
Al Gore and Obama hate you.
You eat a big scoop of Hope n’Change and have a tall glass of stop crying. Leo DiCaprio needs ridiculously expensive, planet killing corn gas in his Prius!
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/19 @ 11:23 am #
“Is it unionized pussy?”
Christ, I have to negotiate in her fat friends too now? That’s gonna be hard to do in a loud bar.
Shit. My wingmen are gonna kill me.
Comment by snuffles on 11/19 @ 11:25 am #
a regulatory culture that will upset economic growth
Um, America’s economy is currently shrinking under the conservatives.
Comment by Pablo Abu Jamal on 11/19 @ 11:28 am #
Which conservatives are those, snuffy?
Comment by snuffles on 11/19 @ 11:33 am #
Don’t tell me you guys are throwing Bush under the bus, Pablo.
Comment by ajacksonian on 11/19 @ 11:33 am #
So this is how it starts…
“To all workers in this building, the government has mandated a third less carbon dioxide emissions. All workers now have an increased amount of Soma to take to effect this. Do take your Soma ration…”
Ahhh… and they said it couldn’t happen here.
Comment by Dash Rendar on 11/19 @ 11:35 am #
Cough, cough, Dems in control of congress since 2006, cough, ahem.
Comment by snuffles on 11/19 @ 11:38 am #
Bus and his band of conservatives were and are still in charge of “Regulations at Federal Agencies” Dash.
And the American economy is shrinking.
Cuba’s economy, btw, is growing faster now than ours ever did under conservative rule.
The more you know!
Comment by Carin on 11/19 @ 11:41 am #
And, they’ve got 100% literacy rates too! YEA CUBA.
Comment by Dash Rendar on 11/19 @ 11:46 am #
Hmm, well let’s point out the obvious to snuffles in shorthand:
1. Sub-prime mortgage crisis
2. Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, nexus of previous, Dem politician moneypit
3. $1.5 Trillion in public debt held by FM/FM
4. Banks buy derivatives of subprime mortgages (smarter banks like J.P. Morgan and BoA recognize the risk and abstain)
5. Gov’t assures public, most notably Barney Frank, that subprime mortgages are “riskless”
6. Not so
7. Bush attempts reform of FM/FM in 2003, McCain does same in 2005, congressional democrats publicly call Reps racist for reform attempts; Dems assure us FM/FM are fine
8. Shit hits fan
Comment by Dash Rendar on 11/19 @ 11:46 am #
O, also I guess Cuba GDP/person went from $200 to $210 or some such.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/19 @ 11:47 am #
“Um, America’s economy is currently shrinking under the conservatives.”
You’re too stupid to breathe.
It’s been you and yours since 2006 jackass.
Go blow Barney Frank. Get Chris Dodd to hold his pecker still for your dumb ass.
In fact, the grown ups are talking here and we’ve had enough of you picking your butt and smelling your fingers. And stop rubbing boogers under the table!
Tell ya what, when your done blowing Barney, why don’t you go out in the garage and play with your ninja stars or something.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 11/19 @ 11:48 am #
Cuba sounds like a nice place to live.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/19 @ 11:48 am #
oh. The Democrats really messed things up bad with their hijacking of mortgage financing for social justice.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/19 @ 11:50 am #
oh. snuffles. snuffles is that guy what wished Major John would die in Iraq. He’s one of those disturbed Internet people.
Comment by Dash Rendar on 11/19 @ 11:52 am #
Yes, I really shouldn’t feed the trolls. Maybe he can off to Cuba and reap some of that wealth.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 11/19 @ 11:52 am #
Hey sniff explain how unions have helped the big 3 automakers and how regulations against carbon emmission will help grow businesses. That would be great thanks.
Comment by snuffles on 11/19 @ 11:52 am #
Lamont,
I understand there are delicate flowers like you whose heads will explode if any doubt is cast upon your political/economic beliefs, but if the next batch of Republican candidates tries to claim our current economic crisis is all the Democrat’s fault America will just point and laugh at them.
Visualize an 80-20 Democratic/Republican split in the Senate in 2010 if you cling to your laughable beliefs.
Comment by Dash Rendar on 11/19 @ 11:56 am #
“I understand there are delicate flowers like you whose heads will explode if any doubt is cast upon your political/economic beliefs”
Event horizon of irony.
Comment by Dan Are on 11/19 @ 11:57 am #
“Government is like a new toy to these people and these are not people what know how to take care of their toys.”
Meanwhile, bratty children will still get toys for X-mas because Barry made coal too expensive for stockings.
Barry, coal…oh, crap. I denounce myself as RACIST!
Comment by Carin on 11/19 @ 11:58 am #
Snuffles … YOU ARE RIGHT. Cuber is teh BOMB. Representative democracy and capitalism is the suxxor.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/19 @ 12:17 pm #
I’m a delicate flower?
[blushes...head explodes]
Why, thank you slow witted internet douchebag. Your so sweet. And some women (strippers) tell me I don’t have enough of a sensitive side.
LOL. Snuffles has turned me with his charms. I now believe EXACTLY what he does.
I’m a delicate flower!!!
Man…I have the urge to run out and buy a Georgia O’Keeffe.
Now don’t bother me people, I’m “visualing” 2010!
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/19 @ 12:24 pm #
I love it when dumb dumb liberals tell me to “visualize” stuff.
Cuz that’s when they get all new age-spiritual, close their eyes, and start swaying and shit.
And that’s when I pee in their bong water.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/19 @ 12:38 pm #
Cuba is the bestest island prison evah!
Better even than that movie, No Escape.
Johnny Drama was in that ya know.
He was a “moral vehicle” though, and got dead.
Ernie Hudson was in it too.
I like him. He was great in The Cowboy Way.
But I get him confused with Keith David sometimes.
I like Keith David too.
He was Spawn…plus, he’s done lots and lots of other cool stuff.
Comment by bergerbilder on 11/19 @ 1:16 pm #
The government shrunk so much under Bush that it was only 50% bigger when he left office compared to the projected 60% bigger. That’s a shrinkage rate of almost 17%!
Comment by Mikey NTH on 11/19 @ 1:50 pm #
How clean is clean and how safe is safe?
I think we need to outlaw human nature, perhaps tinker with the ones we have until we get a good one.
Comment by PalmettoTiger on 11/19 @ 3:14 pm #
“Is it unionized pussy?â€Â
Look for the union labia….
PT
Comment by MAJ (P) John on 11/19 @ 4:10 pm #
“On the bright side, the sale of red tape should reach epic proportions.
Lawsuits against companies for every imagined illness and slight will skyrocket, necessitating the appointment of more judges to enforce more rules to pay out insurance dollars by bankrupted companies taken over by bureaucrats who tax more people to pay for lawsuits against companies for every imagined illness and slight…..”
Glorious. In the civilian world I work for Zurich Insurance – I guess I will have plenty of job security, at least until too many policies exhaust…
Comment by B Moe on 11/19 @ 5:59 pm #
I just got one question: if we send enough money to Detroit, when it attract all these fucking carpet baggers down here trying to turn Georgia into Michigan back up there, you think?
My feelings on the bail out depend mostly on this answer.
Comment by deadrody on 11/19 @ 6:25 pm #
I don’t think it’s really a matter of people being “against clean air†or “in favor of less safety.†The real question is, how “UNCLEAN” is the air ? And, how “UNSAFE” are consumer products these days ? Where is the “scientific evidence” that there is an epidemic of unsafe products or catastrophic consequences of unclean air ?
Of course I realize that the manufactured Global Warming hoax can drive the EPA regardless of any other factors. But product safety ? What exactly is the driving force saying that this agency needs to do more ? In this area, of course, it is trial lawyers who favor much tougher regulations, thereby making it easier for them to bring multi-billion dollar class action suits for coffee that is hot.
I almost say “BRING IT ON”. Obama should just go for it and impose the whole of the nutroot agenda. It’s the only way to be sure that the whole lot of the douchebags are swept out of office in the next 2 to 4 years.
Comment by Rusty on 11/19 @ 6:33 pm #
We are sooo boned.
Comment by McGehee on 11/19 @ 8:44 pm #
Here’s hoping for a pro-capitalist answer to John Steinbeck, this time around.
Comment by Rusty on 11/20 @ 5:56 am #
#41
No. What’s funny, in a sick kind of way, is that it believes what the jailers of the carribeans largest prison tell it. Bag of hammers, dumb as.
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