By Adam Bitely — In a 245-172 vote in the House on July 26, the House passed H.R. 4078, the Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act. This legislation, if passed by the Senate and signed by the President, would stop the federal government from imposing many harmful regulations that cripple job creation until the unemployment rate dips below 6 percent.
This is a great step in the right direction to put an end to the out-of-control federal government that regulates everything it can get its hands on. Unfortunately, Harry Reid will block this attempt at stopping Big Government from ever seeing the light of day in the Senate and Obama has promised to veto this bill should it ever reach his desk. So don’t expect too much action on an item of this nature this year, or as long as Reid and Obama remain in their positions of power.
Taxpayers should be clamoring to know why such modest legislation is being blocked from consideration by the likes of Mr. Reid and Mr. Obama — especially legislation that will benefit all Americans. After all, if the legislation stops job-killing regs, it cannot be good for those regs to be imposed even if unemployment is below 6 percent. The federal government is forcing businesses to run up a huge bill just to comply with the regs. And that cost is also passed on to consumers.
Just how much are federal government regulations costing American businesses? According to Henry I. Miller of the Hoover Institution, the cost to comply with federal regulations is an astounding $1.75 trillion annually!
And all the while, politicians are parading around the country seeking votes this November by employing rhetoric that they are fixing the government by encouraging job growth.
While 172 members of the House seem to be fine with the regulatory burden that exists in America right now, there are plenty more who oppose it at least enough to roll back many regs temporarily. For example, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) rose up in support of the legislation and gave a floor speech that will be long remembered by those that saw it.
But what is most troubling about the out-of-control actions the government takes to regulate everything it sees is how Congress has abdicated their authority on the matter. Congress has taken to passing laws and allowing regulators in the bureaucracy to write what those laws mean through the various regs that they put out. The result is that members of Congress deflect blame from bad regulations by saying they didn’t do it and that they want to get it under control. They passed the law though that allowed the bureaucrat to come up with the rules!
Also, Congress is passing laws that bureaucrats effectively write after the fact. The Dodd-Frank financial takeover bill that was passed two years ago is still being written by the regulators. Congress passed it and the President signed it nearly two years ago!
And who can forget Nancy Pelosi’s famous words in the lead-up to passage of ObamaCare in 2010 when she said that we would all have to wait to see what is inside the bill until it is passed (and the regulators write it).
Congressmen are effectively useless at this point since the millions of bureaucrats under the employ of the federal government are the ones actually defining legislation and crafting the government powers and regulations.
As regulations keep piling up in Washington, D.C. to the detriment of businesses and consumers across the country (and world), Harry Reid and Barack Obama are all that stand in the way of a temporary reprieve from the heavy hand of government. The fact that Reid won’t bring this up for a vote in the Senate is all the more evidence that Congress has turned away from crafting the laws of the land and instead has issued a blanket authorization to thousands of federal government regulators to do whatever they want to you.
Adam Bitely is the Editor-in-Chief of NetRightDaily.com. You can follow Adam on Twitter at @AdamBitely
