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PrintAugust 27, 2011
Cass Sunstein defends new regulations with 'lives saved and illnesses avoided' mythology
During the first 100 days of our nation's downward spiral into oblivion (commonly known as the Obama administration) the Democrat controlled congress rammed a massive party loyalty rewards program (commonly known as the stimulus bill or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) down the throats of the hard-working American taxpayers. The $787 billion dollar fiasco didn't stimulate the economy in any measurable sense however a clever new accounting trick (jobs saved or created) was developed to prove the success of Mr. Obama's first major assault on America.
With a less compliant Republican congress to contend with, Mr. Obama and his comrades have sidestepped the democratic process in favor of governance through executive order and regulation. Representative government in Washington D.C. as designed by the Founders and Framers has ceased to exist. Everything and everyone from goat herders to guitars, find themselves under strict governmental regulation (and in timidation) and "We the People" no longer have any say in the government that we are forced to fund.
The Hill reports that Speaker of the House John Boehner has demanded that the White House provide detailed information on upcoming regulations with an implementation cost of $1 billion or more. Past requests for information on Mr. Obama's new regulations have been stonewalled by the administration.
"A refusal by the administration to disclose proposed regulations that would have an economic cost of more than $1 billion cost would send a terrible signal to already unnerved job creators in America," said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Boehner. "We look forward to receiving that information before Congress returns."
How is it that the Speaker of the House of Representatives has to rely on the Obama administration to provide information concerning new regulations affecting the American people and paid for by the overburdened and underrepresented taxpayers? What about the plethora of new regulations which come in under the $1 billion threshold? Does the expression "No taxation without representation" mean anything to the current leadership?
In responding to Speaker Boehner's request, Obama regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein defended the long list of Obama regulations by claiming multi-billion dollar savings which have been projected based upon "lives saved and illnesses avoided."
The unelected, unconfirmed and unsupervised Sunstein can back up his claims by referencing the well-respected (by the left and their MSM minions) "non-partisan" Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The folks at the EPI released a report in advance of the EPA's regulatory tsunami which projects:
Even if all the final and proposed major rules are added together, their costs are still modest. When fully in effect in 2020, the combined costs of the major EPA rules finalized and proposed so far during the Obama Administration would amount to about 0.3 percent of the economy (this particular combined calculation overstates costs somewhat because it entails some unavoidable double-counting)."The results of this uniquely comprehensive study clearly show how modest the costs of these regulations are relative to the size of the economy. When you factor in the extended period over which they will take effect, these rules will not stifle economic or job growth," said Shapiro.The health benefits from the rules finalized and proposed by the administration would be great, concluded the study. For instance, the proposed air toxics rule, which regulates the amount of hazardous pollutants emitted, would have the following estimated health benefits in 2016:6,800-17,000 lives saved11,000 fever heart attacks12,000 fewer hospital and emergency room visits225,000 fewer cases of respiratory symptoms850,000 more work days (because workers are not too sick to go to work)
Connie Hair warned us about EPI last October in her column for Human Events:
The EPI is housed on the third floor of the building occupied by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, a hard-core leftist group whose flavor of socialist policy has brought you the current blend of elitist socialism and crony capitalism bankrupting the American economy. Which speaks volumes about EPI and the Democrat leadership's choice of witness.
Is there any chance that the folks at the EPI have considered how many lives will be lost and how many illnesses will be created by the stress caused by the economic disaster that will surely follow in the wake of these new regulations? Stress kills. How many senior citizens will be placed at risk due to the blackouts and brownouts that will accompany the closure of power plants under the new EPA regulations?
What would our Founding Fathers have to say about an executive branch that has proposed 219 new regulations (since losing control of the House of Representatives) which will affect Americans from all walks of life? How would James Madison feel about the executive branch usurping the power and the authority of the legislative branch? What would our Founding Fathers do? What will our elected representatives do? What will we do?
August 27, 2011
