The answer is as simple as it is disgusting. The primary cause of our bad economy can be laid right at the feet of the United States Federal Government and the massive, all but totalitarian regulations they’ve been promulgating over the decades.
These regulations long ago reached the point of being an actual threat to the nation’s economic security. Now we can see just how much these regulatory agencies are pulling out of the economy thanks to a study done by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The amount is massive. Here are some of the details from the Washington Free Beacon:
The cost of U.S. regulations is now larger than Germany’s economy, amounting to a $4 trillion loss to the American economy, according to a new study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The study, released Tuesday, found that regulations over the past several decades amount to a loss of $13,000 for each American worker.
That amount should be horrifying to you. $4 trillion dollars is basically the Federal Budget.
“The impact of regulation on economic growth has been widely studied, but most research has focused on a narrow set of regulations, industries, or both,” according to the report. “These studies typically rely on regulatory indexes that measure subsets of all regulation, on country-to-country comparisons, on short time spans, or on surveys in which experts report how regulated they believe their country or industry is.
“In order to better understand the cumulative cost of regulation, a comprehensive look at all regulations across many industries over a long period of time is imperative.”
Researchers at Mercatus studied data from 22 industries from 1977 to 2012, finding regulations have distorted “investments choices that lead to innovation” and have “created a considerable drag on the economy.” The result: an average shrinking of the economy by 0.8 percent a year.
Personally, I think that 0.8 percent is probably a bit on the conservative side, but understandable when working on numbers like this. Consider just how bad things are today and where things might be if American business was not being crushed under the jackboots of the federal regulatory system.
“If regulations had been held constant at levels observed in 1980, the American economy would have been 25 percent larger than it was in 2012,” the report said. “This amounts to a $4 trillion loss in 2012 for the American economy or $13,000 loss per person, a significant amount of money for most American workers.”
Tell me about it. And I’ll tell you something else. I don’t think this study took into account the secondary effects to the economy. By that I mean people who don’t have excess money can’t go and splurge on something they really don’t need, like a night out going to movies or a restaurant.
The cost of federal regulations amounts to the fourth-largest GDP in the world, surpassing the economies of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Italy, Russia, and India.
Mercatus researchers Bentley Coffey, Patrick A. McLaughlin, and Pietro Peretto said they hope that their in-depth analysis will persuade lawmakers and federal agencies to think twice before implementing costly regulations.
You’re joking right? They aren’t paying any attention to the costs of the regulations now. Do you really think they will start because you have been nice enough to point out the issues?
“While static analysis of individual regulations sometimes predicts beneficial effects for society, policymakers should consider the results of this study not only when creating new regulations, but also when considering reform of the regulatory process itself,” the study said.
“By altering investment decisions and disrupting the innovation that comes from investment in knowledge creation, regulations have a cumulative and detrimental effect on economic growth—and, over time, have a real impact on American families and workers.”
And that impact can be summed up in several words, starting with job loss.
President Barack Obama is pushing thousands of new regulations through during his final year in office, many that will cost industries more than $100 million.
Oh it’s worse than that. Obama and his minions in the regulatory agencies are destroying entire industries and doing it with religious fervor. (See the Environmental Protection Agency) I think Donald Trump might go after some of these issues, and could make this a true issue in the election against Cankles Clinton. As a businessman, Trump has had to deal with these regulations and knows just how harmful they actually are.
Originally, the United States didn’t have all that many regulations. As we grew as a nation, things cropped up from time to time that showed that some regulation had to be initiated. Now, we have long since crossed the point where regulating anything is actually beneficial. What we’re seeing now is the use of regulations to impose the Progressive agenda on America.
The Progressive Liberal Fascist Democrats know they can’t institute a command Soviet style economy by enacting laws through Congress. Any member of congress that actually pushed for these laws would be out on the street in the next election.
Instead, the PLFD’s have moved into the various agencies and have instituted what could be called a “Regulatory reign of terror.” If someone makes a small paperwork mistake, at best they lose everything they have. At worst, they go to prison or end up being killed by a no knock raid on their homes that goes wrong.
Critical mass has been reached. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything Trump or Cruz can do to stop this. Clinton and the Democrats, on the other hand, not only don’t want to stop it, they’re going full tilt at increasing the reach of their pet agencies. Someone needs to send this study to Donald Trump as soon as possible so he can read it and start asking some very pointed questions.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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