Freedom Line Blog

Republican control of the House of Representatives may have stifled the Obama Administration’s grand statist designs in Congress, but the White House continues to push costly, job-killing regulation through the rulemaking power of the administrative state. Because new regulations enjoy nowhere near the media scrutiny of new legislation, however, the public often remains unaware of their role as silent predators on America’s economy. That’s why credit is due to House Speaker John Boehner for calling Obama to account for this economic poison. From Politico:

In a letter that will be sent to President Barack Obama on Friday, House Speaker John Boehner charges that planned regulations have jumped nearly 15 percent over the past year and he calls on the administration to calculate and publicize their economic impact.

“This year, the administration’s current regulatory agenda identifies 219 planned new regulations that have estimated annual costs in excess of $100 million each. That’s almost a 15 percent increase over last year and appears to contradict public suggestions by the administration this week that the regulatory burden on American job creators is being scaled back,” Boehner wrote.

“I was startled to learn that the EPA estimates that at least one of its proposed rules will cost our economy as much as $90 billion per year. The administration has not disclosed how many of the other 218 planned rules will cost more than $1 billion, nor identified these rules,” he noted.

If Obama is serious about “pivoting to jobs” (a promise we seem to hear on a quarterly basis), there’s no way he can ignore the costs of federal regulations, which are de facto tax increases. According to the Small Business Administration, the annual cost of federal regulation alone amounts to $1.75 trillion dollars. That’s nearly 12 percent of America’s GDP gone every year because of the Washington bureaucracy.

A failure to repeal many of these draconian monstrosities is economic malpractice. But a failure to simply reveal their costs is a dereliction of duty.

Last week we told you about how President Obama’s steadfast refusal to open up America’s energy resources is keeping prices at the pump artificially high. But as we transition into the summer driving season, it’s important to remember that Obama isn’t the first Washington busybody who wanted to micromanage your gas tank.

Though current oil volatility will mask its effect, decades old federal regulations mandate that gas stations sell a “summer blend” gasoline from June 1 to September 15 (some localities extend the period). The blend is intended to cut down on air pollution in local areas, but it also adds an average of 10 cents per gallon to the cost of gasoline. Just what we needed.