David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
David Brooks' latest NYT column says that Obama's growing list of regulations can't be blamed for the current recession. I think his weird Obama-blindness--examples of which are legion--is at work again:
In the first place, President Obama has certainly not shut corporate-types out of the regulatory process. According to data collected by the Center for Progressive Reforms, 62 percent of the people who met with the White House office in charge of reviewing regulations were representatives of industry, while only 16 percent represented activist groups. At these meetings, business representatives outnumbered activists by more than 4 to 1.
Is it really possible that Brooks is completely ignorant of the free-market critique of corporatist economics? Does he really not know how big corporations love regulations if they get to help write them? A simple head-count of industry lobbyists in the room tells you nothing about the pro-market tendency of the process. Sheesh.
Nor is it true that the administration is blindly doing the bidding of the liberal activist groups. On the contrary, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and its administrator, Cass Sunstein, have been the subject of withering attacks from the left. The organization Think Progress says the office is “appalling.” Mother Jones magazine is on the warpath. The Huffington Post published a long article studded with negative comments from unions and environmental activists.
The activist Left is turning against Obama? Riiiiiight. These people are paid to complain. If they get 99%, they'll find a way to describe the lost 1% as a harbinger of the apocalypse.
George W. Bush issued regulations over eight years that cost about $60 billion. During its first two years, the Obama regulations cost between $8 billion and $16.5 billion, according to estimates by the administration itself, and $40 billion, according to data collected, more broadly, by the Heritage Foundation.
That’s a significant step up, as you’d expect when comparing Republican to Democratic administrations, but it is not a socialist onslaught.
Here is Brooks' "logic" rephrased: since the 60 tons of coal that Bush dumped on the severely overloaded freighter SS United States didn't sink the ship, then it stands to reason that the 40 more tons (and counting) that Obama is dumping on it couldn't possibly sink it either.
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Feb '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Many small manufacturing businesses...children's toy manufacturers, toy and science kit manufacturers, homecrafters of various kinds...have been crippled or destroyed by the "Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act." You can bet that these kinds of businesses were not heavily involved in any review of the legislation or of rules written under it.
The classic river steamboat Delta Queen was put out of business, as far as passenger service goes, by (highly irrational) Congressional refusal to extend its safety waiver. You can bet that if riverboat lovers had been a large and highly-organized lobby, this would not have happened.
As I said in my post about the DQ matter: "I fear that we’ve entered an era in which nothing will be permitted to exist unless it serves the needs/desires of powerful interest groups."
Allowing representative of large and influential corporations to be involved in legislation and rule-making does not in any way make up for damage caused to those who are outside the charmed circle; indeed, it exacerbates it.
Edited on Dec 7, 2011 at 8:26pmApr '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
So Bush, over 8 years, imposed $60 billion in regulatory costs (note that Brooks does not source this figure). Obama has imposed $40 billion in two years. If we project that out, it would be $160 billion over the equivalent Bush period of eight years. Talk about your sensible moderation!!! Somehow, if Obama is awarded a second term, I suspect the regulatory state will crush that $160 billion projection.
Jun '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Fredösphere: ...
Is it really possible that Brooks is completely ignorant of the free-market critique of corporatist economics? Does he really not know how big corporations love regulations if they get to help write them? A simple head-count of industry lobbyists in the room tells you nothing about the pro-market tendency of the process. Sheesh.
...
This is the real question here -- perfect Fredo.
One way I have of dealing with arguments with liberals is to ask them what they think the conservative position is on a given subject. I mean it's a good place to start in order to untangle the ridiculous set of notions that liberals have about us and that they been drinking in their Kool-Aid for all their years.
Your question is so apt with David Brooks. I mean does he know enough about us to at least throw a line in or two about how we see this?
His article could easily be written by any hack Democratic operative. Shameful display of ignorance in the first degree.
May '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Brooks claims that every President front-loads regulatory activity, so that a lot of the action happens in the first two years. OTOH, Obamacare is going to prove you right, I think.
May '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Larry Koler
One way I have of dealing with arguments with liberals is to ask them what they think the conservative position is on a given subject. I mean it's a good place to start in order to untangle the ridiculous set of notions that liberals have about us and that they been drinking in their Kool-Aid for all their years.
Your question is so apt with David Brooks. I mean does he know enough about us to at least throw a line in or two about how we see this? · Dec 7 at 12:40pm
Excellent idea. I'll have to try to remember to do that.
And you expressed my feeling exactly: when the other side ignores a key argument, you have to wonder, are they deliberately attempting a sleight of hand, or are they just ignorant?
Aug '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Fredösphere:
Is it really possible that Brooks is completely ignorant of the free-market critique of corporatist economics? Does he really not know how big corporations love regulations if they get to help write them?
If he's ignorant, he doesn't deserve his status as a pundit. If he's just pretending not to know, he also doesn't deserve his status as a pundit. That pretty much exhausts the options, doesn't it?
Feb '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
If he's ignorant, he doesn't deserve his status as a pundit. If he's just pretending not to know, he also doesn't deserve his status as a pundit. That pretty much exhausts the options, doesn't it? ·
I won't claim to be any sort of a fan of Brooks, but I don't feel the hostility towards him that I see at various places around the internet either.
But I'm questioning his status as a pundit rather thoroughly right now.
For example I don't think any corporation loves the opportunity to have input on the regulations Obama's EPA tosses up routinely. It's more along the lines of begging for a stay of execution. Of course the environmentalists want the scheduled executions- so why bother to lobby?
Except when the intense begging from industry actually succeeds in getting a reprieve- and then the activists are enraged.
Brooks somehow misses that dynamic, which doesn't make me think he should be counted as any sort of pundit- or thinker, or conservative- or else he just wouldn't write some of the stuff he writes.
Jul '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
David Brooks is not a complete idiot. But he is always trying to complete the process to total idiocy. Somehow the day he says he's tapped in to his conservative core I'll know he's finished. I do not think he thinks beyond getting adulation for being the thinking moderate(gag) in a sea of socialist miscreants.
Jun '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Xennady
...
For example I don't think any corporation loves the opportunity to have input on the regulations Obama's EPA tosses up routinely. It's more along the lines of begging for a stay of execution. Of course the environmentalists want the scheduled executions- so why bother to lobby?
...
You need to understand a couple things. Let's start with Netscape using the government to go after Microsoft. You should read about the mechanism of congressmen, senators and lawyers who were hired to pull that off.
You are right that Microsoft until about 1997 didn't want to get involved with nor need lobbyists. That all changed after Clinton's administration started going after them. Now they have as many or more lobbyists than the biggest companies. Self-protection.
Regarding writing regulations, I can only tell a little story that I witnessed while working for a very large corporation. The lead engineering manager of my division mentioned in passing that he got to meet with a congressman about some legislation ideas. The congressman drafted this manager to write the first copy and shepherd the legislation that would affect our industry and our competitors' industry. Kinda cool, I thought.
Nothing new, I'm sure: but not only don't they read the legislation -- our congressmen don't even write it.
Edited on Dec 7, 2011 at 6:02pmAug '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Xennady
For example I don't think any corporation loves the opportunity to have input on the regulations Obama's EPA tosses up routinely. It's more along the lines of begging for a stay of execution.
I think you're right that corporate lobbying often resembles begging for a stay of execution. But how many of us wouldn't love a stay of execution? So I do think corporations love having input into the regulations they're subject to, if only for bare survival.
It's also not uncommon for established businesses to lobby for rules that keep out competitors.
Irrespective of motivations, a regulatory regime heavily influenced by corporate lobbying tends to favor "Big Business" over smaller business (since it's huge corporations, not small businesses, that can afford to employ legions of lobbyists) and existing businesses over potential competitors (since no one lobbies for businesses that have yet to be born).
And the bigger the regulatory regime, the bigger the incentive for corporations to influence it.
Altogether, a high regulatory burden leads to more corporate lobbying and more highly motivated corporate lobbyists. Which leads to greater corporate influence, even while laws become less business-friendly in general.
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Why do you think that you are reading this by the light of a flickering, slow-to-warm-up, compact fluorescent bulb? Philips and GE, lobbied the government to get rid of all of those pesky cutthroat competitors. For the planet.
Now that many incandescent bulb factories are shuttered, notice what has happened to the price of lightbulbs, whatever technology, in your local home depot.
Feb '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Brooks is in denial about Obama, but I think Sunstein is the titular "wonky liberal."
Aug '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
George Savage: Why do you think that you are reading this by the light of a flickering, slow-to-warm-up, compact fluorescent bulb? Philips and GE, lobbied the government to get rid of all of those pesky cutthroat competitors. For the planet.
Now that many incandescent bulb factories are shuttered, notice what has happened to the price of lightbulbs, whatever technology, in your local home depot.
The Sylvania incandescents are still dirt-cheap (Locally, about a quarter each for the 100w Incandescents) . . . and yes, I am one of those people stocking up. And I'm not alone . . . the shelves are looking quite empty lately.
By the way, the leftists I know think we're all fools for complaining about the lightbulb. They are convinced that non-incandescents are just fine, and we'll "get used to them."
If I repeatedly banged my forehead with a hammer, I'd probably get used to the headaches from that, too.
Jun '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
He's always been a bit wobbly, but those NPR spots must have finally done him in. If one sits too close to E.J. Dionne for too long...
Jul '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Actually Drew the headaches get worse as do the light bulbs. Trying watching ten Obama speeches and then tell me about the nausea from the first compared to the projectile vomiting of the 6th with hyperemesis gravidum by the 10th.
Edited on Dec 8, 2011 at 12:04amFeb '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Larry Koler & MFR- I agree with you both, generally. I was specifically going after Mr. Brooks and his quaint notion that industry is out-lobbying the environmental movement with the Obama administration.
It isn't. I think this bunch of regulators is so far beyond extreme that the frantic efforts of just about everyone with a clue has only barely managed to temporarily delay EPA regulations that will have immediate and disastrous effects on the economy. The only reason the intense lobbying succeeded BTW is Obama's need to look rational for the upcoming election. But the regulations will be back if he gets re-elected.
Plus, I don't accept Brook's facile estimates of the cost of regulations. For example the environmental lobby has claimed regulations that will shut down dozens of coal fired power plants will only cost $2 billion. Since the government will not allow new coal plants to be built and the cost to replace those plants will be huge the claim that the cost will be only $2 billion can only be a deliberate lie.
Brooks should have managed to find this out, if he wants to be a pundit.
Apr '11
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Fredösphere
Larry Koler
One way I have of dealing with arguments with liberals is to ask them what they think the conservative position is on a given subject. I mean it's a good place to start in order to untangle the ridiculous set of notions that liberals have about us and that they been drinking in their Kool-Aid for all their years.
Your question is so apt with David Brooks. I mean does he know enough about us to at least throw a line in or two about how we see this? ·
Excellent idea. I'll have to try to remember to do that.
And you expressed my feeling exactly: when the other side ignores a key argument, you have to wonder, are they deliberately attempting a sleight of hand, or are they just ignorant?
It's amazingly common. The Economist magazine is probably the worst offender in this regard, constantly making claims that Republicans should be mollified because Immelt is getting input or Buffet supports something. Part of the same cartoonish world view that leads them to use GOP support for voter ID as proof of the measure's racism.
Jun '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Xennady: Larry Koler & MFR- I agree with you both, generally. I was specifically going after Mr. Brooks and his quaint notion that industry is out-lobbying the environmental movement with the Obama administration.
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Now I understand. Thanks for the clarification.
The left has a leg up doing the lobbying business. In many ways, the only reason the left is so big and powerful in this country is because they have so many ways to receive government money. We are funding our internal enemies.
Oct '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
Stunning.
May '10
Re: David Brooks and the Cost of Regulation
The more people from a group that marches in to talk about a new reg, the worse the reg is. Bank it; whenever we were losing a battle in Washington, we unholstered the big guns and descended on the place like locusts. If environmentalists staff the department, the greens don't have to lobby- they own the turf.
Second, the question is not how many regulations or pages there are- the issue is actual content and the target of the regulation. The number of pages attached to a prewscription drug by the risk-avoiding company as orderde by FDA is not congruent to the effectiveness of the drug.
Under Bush, 2008, there were reams of Federal Register pages devoted to the statutorily required CAA ozone review. The biggest chunk of those pages was made up of the rationale for overruling the advisory committee that wanted to push the levels below economically available technology capabilities. Obama's been trying to overturn that decision for two years.
Brooks is a solid pundit, but has zero business experience or understanding of business. He is simply ignorant here (like Obama); he is right that there are other larger factors to the economic woes.