Obama’s Crushing Regulatory Burden

Thursday, March 15th, 2012 and is filed under Blog, Taxes

One of Obama’s favorite bromides is that he has never raised taxes on those earning less than $200,000.  The problem is that he lies every time he repeats that statement.  A government intervention in the form of regulations, mandates, and market-distorting subsidies is tantamount to a tax because it makes all consumers pay more for vital products and services.  In that sense, it is an extremely regressive tax that disproportionately hurts lower and middle-income earners who spend a large share of their income on food and energy.

Earlier in the week, the Heritage Foundation published a comprehensive report about the costs of Obama’s regulations in just three years.  They found that his 106 new federal regulations cost the economy $46 billion.  That 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.”

Here are some other key points from this magnanimous report:

• Just since January 2011, when Obama announced an end to his onerous regulatory regime, he has implemented 32 new regs, costing $10 billion annually along with another $6.6 billion in one-time implementation costs.
• These costs do not factor in the hundreds of upcoming regulations from Dodd–Frank, Obamacare, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s global warming regime.
• The total cost of regulations is probably even higher than the report suggests because government agencies are notorious for low-balling the estimates, especially regarding environmental regulations.