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  • President Obama Forgets – Policy Reminder #2

President Obama Forgets – Policy Reminder #2

President Obama Forgets he said he would ease regulatory burdens on the American economy. But AFP activists want to remind the President that he continues to add thousands of pages of new regulations each year when Americans are already suffering under the crushing burden of overregulation.

In a recent speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, the President argued that in America “everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.” In fact, the opposite is true: businesses are being strangled by red tape and individuals face vast limitations on personal freedom in nearly every aspect of their lives. The Code of Federal Regulations already spans well over 150,000 pages. Small business owners continue to report that government regulatory burdens and red tape are among their top problems. You can’t buy a washing machine or a light bulb without government interference, not to mention the many regulations on the car you drive to the store to buy them.

The Small Business Administration estimates that the cost to comply with all these rules is $1.75 trillion annually and climbing, more than what Americans pay in individual and corporate income taxes combined. The Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies found that each regulator on the federal payroll destroys 98 private sector jobs and $6.2 million in gross domestic product.

The President has not “removed outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive,” as he said. His widely touted regulatory review eliminated roughly $2 billion in annual regulatory compliance costs, a mere one-tenth of one percent of the total! In the meantime, the President has added 75 new major regulations since he took office, imposing $38 billion in additional compliance costs on the economy every year, vastly overwhelming his halfhearted efforts to cut through red tape.


The White House, Remarks by the President on the Economy in Osawatomie, Kansas (December 6, 2011) (online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/06/remarks-president-...).

U.S. Government Printing Office, Bookstore Listing: Code of Federal Regulations (online at http://bookstore.gpo.gov/baskets/cfr-listing.jsp) (accessed January 6, 2012).

William C. Dunkelberg and Holly Wade, NFIB Small Business Economic Trends, National Federation of Independent Businesses Monthly Survey (December 2011) (online at http://www.nfib.com/Portals/0/PDF/sbet/sbet201112.pdf).

U.S. Department of Energy, Appliances and Commercial Equipment Standards: Residential Clothes Washers (online at http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/appliance_standards/residential/cl...) (accessed January 9, 2012); U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Savers: New Lighting Standards Begin in 2012 (online at http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/lighting_daylighting/index.cfm/myt...) (accessed January 9, 2012);Environmental Protection Agency, EPA and NHTSA Propose to Extend the National Program to Reduce Greenhouse Gases and Improve Fuel Economy for Cars and Trucks (November 2011) (online at http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/documents/420f11038.pdf) (discussing both GHG and CAFE standards). This is not to mention the numerous government requirements and testing these products undergo to ensure consumer safety.

Nicole V. Crain and W. Mark Crain, The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms, U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy (September 2010) (online at http://archive.sba.gov/advo/research/rs371tot.pdf); Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables – Table 2.1: Receipts by Source, 1934-2016 (February 2011) (online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/h...).

T. Randolph Beard, George S. Ford, Hyeongwoo Kim, and Lawrence J. Spiwak, Regulatory Expenditures, Economic Growth and Jobs: An Empirical Study, PHOENIX CENTER POLICY BULLETIN No. 28 (April 2011). http://www.phoenix-center.org/PolicyBulletin/PCPB28Final.pdf

President Barack Obama, Toward a 21-st Century Regulatory System, Wall Street Journal (January 18, 2011) (online at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870339660457608827211210369...). See also President Barack Obama, Executive Order 13563 – Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review (January 18, 2011); The White House, Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address (January 25, 2011) (online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/25/remarks-president-...) (“To reduce barriers to growth and investment, I’ve ordered a review of government regulations. When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them.”).

Remarks by Cass Sunstein, Administrator, White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, at the American Enterprise Institute (May 26, 2011) (online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/inforeg/speeches/oira-...); Remarks ; Cass Sunstein, Washington Is Eliminating Red Tape, Wall Street Journal (August 23, 2011) (online at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190359690457651865278310119...).

James Gattuso and Diane Katz, Red Tape Rising: A 2011 Mid-Year Report, The Heritage Foundation (July 25, 2011) (online at http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/red-tape-rising-a-2011-...).