Bad Government Made Worse

Just the thing to brighten your morning -- the Bush administration tackles the problem of political hacks having insufficient control over regulatory policy. You, too, were probably sitting at home thinking "government regulations are proffered with too much professionalism and deference to expert opinion, our lobbyists paid for this administration and yet we don't have 100 percent control over the process." Then came Bush ready to save the day.

Photo by Blacknell

Portions of the article, meanwhile, reads like a dispatch from the 2001-2003 era of Pravda-style reporting from our beloved friends in the newspaper business. "Business groups welcomed the executive order, saying it had the potential to reduce what they saw as the burden of federal regulations," writes Robert Pear, "this burden is of great concern to many groups, including small businesses, that have given strong political and financial backing to Mr. Bush." He couldn't find even one example of a gigantic corporation that might benefit from a lessening of this burden? Earlier in the article he reported that "business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration." Is all of that unfair EPA crackdown on people who pollute too much really just burdening the small businesses? Mom & Pop's general store? The bed and breakfast up the road? Really?

The narrow point here, clearly, is to make money for Bush's donor base. As is often the case, however, the administration seems determined to broadly demonstrate the conservative case against activist government through its own malice and incompetence. Bush is giving us all a nice lesson in public choice economics.

Comments

I always keep in mind ultimately citizens get the government they deserve. Certainly in 2000 the electorate may not have fully appreciated what they were getting into. However, they returned Bush to office in '04 despite policies quite like those exposed in this post. I don't know what the effect on world affairs would be in the event of a collapse of the U.S. government. It is apparent though such a slothful, addicted, obese, wastrel, nihilistic and sociopathic society really is better off dumped on the ash heap of history. Viva la Bush!! May he continue to hasten a downfall and demise so richly deserved, so earnestly worked for!

Posted by steve duncan | January 30, 2007 7:46 AM

I see two good things among the many bad:

Until now, agencies often tallied the costs and the benefits of major rules one by one, without measuring the cumulative effects.

Many guidance documents are made available to regulated industries but not to the public.

Changing both of these would be an improvement. On the other hand, there are so many other problems with the executive order, political cronyism and incompetence being just one. What caught my eye was this:

The directive issued by Mr. Bush says that, in deciding whether to issue regulations, federal agencies must identify “the specific market failure” or problem that justifies government intervention.

This is pretty much a vacuous criterion, first because it seems likely that no one in the Bush administration actually believes that markets ever fail, and second because it can be very hard to attribute problems specifically to a market failure. Enron's dealings with California, for example, struck me as a clear example of market failure, and yet I didn't hear any calls from Republicans for increasing regulation; on the contrary.

Posted by RSA | January 30, 2007 9:04 AM

Doesn't somebody have to, ummm, fund these offices and positions? If Congress hasn't done so, where will they get the money from? And even if they can rearrange the FY07 money so that these offices can be formed, and these positions staffed with political hacks, it would seem that Congress could specifically de-fund these offices in its FY08 budget, which would give these offices a pull-by date of September 30 of this year.

So even if they came up with the money tomorrow to fund these offices (and they won't - it'll take a few months' wrangling at each agency, at a minimum, to decide what to cut to fund them), they'd have to find people to staff these offices who were willing to leave what they're doing now, for a position that might disappear in 4-6 months.

Posted by RT | January 30, 2007 9:17 AM

slothful, addicted, obese, wastrel, nihilistic and sociopathic society

Have you been saving that up, duncan? As an American, I must object to 'slothful'. Not true at all. I also don't think the entire society can be fairly charaterized as 'sociopathic'. And why would you use 'nihilistic' (debatable) and leave out 'solipsistic ' (not so debatable)? Reductive, ignorant, facile, cliche-laden....meet you at the 'ash heap of history', brother.

GW Bush does indeed represent decline, however. And re-electing him was fateful.

I too was struck by the construction of the NYT article. The style is 'Politburo Lite.' But being servile and deliberately obtuse is nothing new for them, nor was it new in 2001.

Posted by jonnybutter | January 30, 2007 9:28 AM

The other thing that struck me was how similar it seems to to old russian stereotype of "the party representative" that was always present. I was specifically reminded of "Hunt for Red October", where all of their actions had to be hidden from the "party representative" on board.

Posted by RBD | January 30, 2007 9:53 AM

Usually the regualtory burden is relatively greater on smaller businesses than on large, which are more equiped to handle these things. Moreover, regulatory burdens often create barriers to entry, which help large organizations. Accordingly, the Pear statement is (as a generality) correct.

Posted by Al | January 30, 2007 10:02 AM

There are some problems with government regulations - it's not all ruling class resentment. My dad ran a small spring company, and my favorite OSHA story from those years was when they made the factory swap out all the closed-loop toilet seats for open-ended toilet seats. When you look at the cost effectiveness of regulations, they are all over the map - some clearly necessary, some cleary a waste.

Of course, we can assume that when Bush does this the main features will be high paying jobs for incompetent college roommates, plus his rich friends will get richer by, for example, repackaging radioactive waste as furniture stripper ("Dip 'n Glo" furniture stripper, as mentioned in Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley). But if president Obama or Clinton wanted to tackle this area they could probably make some improvements.

Posted by Peter | January 30, 2007 10:35 AM

I foresee still another embarrassing situation for the Administration here too. Reports being leaked to the press that were squelched by the political appointee. Any injury that happens at an OSHA regulated facility that could have been prevented had the appointte "let us do our jobs" will make headlines. Bring it on!

Posted by Rick | January 30, 2007 10:49 AM

MY, have you ever worked at a mainstream non-opinion news organization? Because I'm kind of surprised you think:

Portions of the article, meanwhile, reads like a dispatch from the 2001-2003 era of Pravda-style reporting from our beloved friends in the newspaper business.

The very fact of this article's appearance is, in itself, a harsh critique of the administration. Anyone who knows how straight-news articles are written knows that this is an attack on Administration overreach. In 2002 this article would not have appeared; it would not have been considered news, because to publish it, you need a running narrative to play into, and here the running narrative is "Administration power grabs putting GOP hacks in control of previously nonpartisan expert organizations". That narrative only became a mainstream one in 2005, and solidified around Katrina. In 2002 just running such an article would have marked you as a paranoid Bush-hating lefty.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 30, 2007 11:44 AM

OSHA regs are actually pretty hard for small businesses. The regulations are extensive and can hinge on rather trival differences - common sense alone isn't enough to keep you in compliance. A 30-person (8 at the specific site) chemical company I interned at was in non-compliance because the spill dike they had for their reactors wasn't painted the correct color.

At larger companies, you can just hire a specialized regulatory compliance guy who keeps track of this stuff full-time, but at the site in question, it probably would have increased payroll by around 30%.

Posted by MattXIV | January 30, 2007 12:36 PM

Matt and jonnybutter,
sorry, but you're just reading this wrong. brooksfoe has it. I happen to have followed a good bit of Robert Pear's writing and he is the furthest thing from a Bush apologist. Someone once described him as "channeling the spirit of RFK" and that's not too far off. This article was unquestionably designed (and quite properly so, let me say) to elicit precisely the reaction it's getting on liberal blogs. The stuff about the business lobby's side of things isn't there to state some Objective Truth - it's just for the appearance of balance. The reader is credited with being able to recognize b.s. corporate propaganda for what it is. Pear didn't give examples of businesses actually hurt by regulations because he doesn't think there really are any such businesses. Trust me, when The Washington Times runs their version there won't be any blatant signaling like "reduce what they saw as the burden of regulations" - it'll just be "reduce the burden of regulations," with the business lobby's credibility presumed.

Posted by The Navigator | January 30, 2007 2:36 PM

So there's no burden of regulation that could possibly de reduced? Thanks, Navigator, you should tell the business owners referenced in the above comments.

Posted by too many steves | January 30, 2007 6:24 PM

I'm as opposed to Bush administration hacks grabbing more power as the next sentient being, but I have two additional observations:

1) As far as I understand the regulatory process, basically the same required balancing of costs and benefits occurs in OMB's final review, after the agencies have formulated their own regulations. This just adds more political control earlier (I think).

2) What do you think are the chances that a Democratic president, upon taking office in 2009, rescinds this baby?

Posted by Dimmy Karras | January 30, 2007 6:31 PM

Actually, I bet it's to raise money for GOP coffers.

Companies who give to the GOP will probably be more likely to be fortunate enough to provide those appointees from amongst their employees.

Posted by Jon H | January 30, 2007 9:39 PM

The legacy of this Bush administration will be concentration of power in the White House. Not the exec branch, mind you, but the White House. This ratchet-up is but a 'signing statement' aimed at those pesky agency technocrats, now that 'those people' bagged Congress.

And be careful what you wish for, Dr. Frankenstein: 'market failure' is already on a collision course with health care.

Posted by rickhavoc | January 31, 2007 11:26 AM

Of all my flickr pics, that would have been about the last I'd have expected to be used . . .

Coincidentally, I also happen to be an attorney who deals mostly with regulated industries (before the FCC). This strikes me as a waste of time and money, tho' I doubt it will actually result in any substantively friendlier regs than before. This is just another finger in an already well handled pie.

Or something like that.

Posted by MB | February 1, 2007 6:39 PM