A few weeks back the communications director for Tim Walberg called me to let me know that he felt I was misrepresenting the facts of a previous post of mine about a conversation I had with a staffer regarding government regulations. In essence I was told that Mr. Walberg was just gathering information about how regulations affect business and that there was no agenda behind the call.
What I fail to understand about this defense is that the Representative's own website has an article titled: "Rep Tim Walberg Focuses on Job-Destroying Regulations". It's clear he is against a litany of government regulations. Why run from that fact? If there is good rationale behind your objectives you should tout them.
Also during my conversation I was told that job creation is Tim Walberg's number one priority. When I asked for proof of that I was given two links. Here and here. Both of these links show that Tim Walberg is for cutting taxes and reducing regulations. This is hardly revolutionary thinking. It happens to be the same principles that George W. Bush governed under for 8 years. The record would indicate that job creation was dismal for those 8 years.
The reality is that Tim Walberg has sponsored two pieces of legislation. One on February 14th seeking a moratorium on Flood Insurance Rate Maps and one on February 16th basically preempting any regulations that the EPA may try and enforce. He has also signed on as a co-sponsor to a number of pieces of legislation but if you look though them you will see the vast majority of them are for restricting abortion, limiting restrictions on guns, reducing taxes, eliminating government regulations, and generally attempting to repeal anything that the President has supported. That is not to say that he hasn't co-sponsored or voted for any reasonable legislation but there is very little there to support the notion that Tim Walberg has made job creation his number one priority.
If you look at the second link above to Eric Cantor's "Jobs Legislation Tracker" you will see that 50% of what Republicans consider job creation legislation is in the reducing regulations category. While government regulations may cost jobs, like most everything else Republican legislators have gone after lately, the emphasis is not appropriate to the benefits. The number of jobs created by ending government regulations is relatively small when compared with something like infrastructure spending that the President will propose (and Republicans will oppose) next week.
Of course the thing that Tim Walberg and his Republican colleagues won't tell you is the costs for removing regulations. While government regulations may cost jobs and more money for tax payers, they don't cost lives. The gulf oil spill and the West Virginia mining accidents were due in part to a lack of a proper regulatory system. It should also be noted that the removal of regulations was a major contributor to the housing bubble that led to the most recent economic downturn, costing around 8 million jobs.
It would also be a mistake to focus solely on the costs of regulations without acknowledging the benefits. By continuing to reduce regulations we run the risk of serious public health issues like the Chinese toothpaste that was tainted with poison. By in large government regulations follow the government mandate of being "for the public good". Just because a regulation has detractors doesn't mean that it should be repealed.
The other point I would like to make is that in a recent survey of 250 economists who work in corporate America, 80% of the economists termed the currently regulatory environment as "good". The other 20% was split between "bad" and "unsure". If regulations are such a burden on corporate America shouldn't they be aware of this? It is tough to say that corporate America is being held back by government regulations when less than 20% of corporate America agrees with that statement.
In some sense I really wish Tim Walberg would admit that he has an agenda since then at least he could show he stands for something. By claiming to be impartial and then voting with Republicans 93% of the time while only sponsoring two pieces of legislation Tim Walberg has proven he is just a good solider, not a valued leader. In this political climate we need leaders with ideas otherwise rhetoric like jobs are number one come of sounding like number two.
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