There is an old saw that holds there are three kinds of lies — lies, damned lies and statistics. There is a fourth category that should be added — the numbers used by Washington politicians to make themselves look good. Ask a congressman or a president a question, and odds are good that the answer will include a slew of numbers that make the speaker sound like a fountain of wisdom and logic. But used-car buyers learned long ago to ignore the salesman’s claim that the previous owner only drove a sporty three-year-old roadster on weekends. And so taxpayers should scoff whenever White House occupants or members of Congress start throwing around numbers.
Take federal regulation. In his State of the Union address, President Obama claimed he’s “approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.” Obama was literally telling the truth. Since being sworn into office, Obama and his Cabinet appointees have approved 10,215 new regulations. President George W. Bush had approved 10,674 at the same point in his tenure. But there is much more to the story than the numbers. What Obama neglected to mention is that his regulations cost much more to implement.
In an analysis issued Tuesday, the Heritage Foundation’s James Gattuso and Diane Katz reported that “during the first three years of the Obama Administration, 106 new major federal regulations added more than $46 billion per year in new costs for Americans. This is almost four times the number — and more than five times the cost — of the major regulations issued by George W. Bush during his first three years.” Major new regulations are those having compliance costs of at least $100 million. Those with lower costs aren’t included in the 106.
The Heritage report warns that more bad news is on the way. “Hundreds of new regulations are winding through the rulemaking pipeline as a consequence of the vast Dodd-Frank financial-regulation law [the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act], Obamacare, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s global warming crusade, threatening to further weaken an anemic economy and job creation.” These new rules will reach deeply into American daily life, covering such mundane things as what kind of financial services your bank can offer, how your doctor treats your fever and body aches, and the light bulbs you are permitted to use in your house.
An obvious solution is for government to stop trying to regulate everything that moves. Bringing about such a Valhalla will likely require several elections, but in the meantime there are some common-sense fixes Washington should adopt. For example, the American Petroleum Institute’s Kyle Isakower told reporters recently that it makes no sense for 10 separate federal agencies to have heavy hands in regulating new oil and gas drilling technologies like hydraulic fracturing. So why not designate one as the lead agency and coordinate all proposed regulations through it? “We are trying to ensure that they are not stepping on each other’s toes,” he said. Wouldn’t it be great just once to see Washington politicians and bureaucrats following such an obviously sensible suggestion?
