Great: Obama regulations cost 20x admin’s estimate, annually

posted at 2:01 pm on September 20, 2012 by Erika Johnsen

This is getting old. Painfully, egregiously old.

Despite President Obama’s assiduous promises that he would scrupulously avoid raising taxes whatsoever on the middle class, the CBO released yet another of its revised reports yesterday, informing us that the ObamaCare mandate tax is going to overwhelmingly impose itself upon members of the middle class, with an average penalty to the tune of $1,200. Lovely.

And today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute via the Washington Examiner has more info concluding that current federal regulations, in addition to ObamaCare’s upcoming regulations, impose a cost on individuals and businesses that amounts to more than twenty times what the Obama administration originally anticipates, annually. (Say it with me: But, who could’ve seen this coming?)

Current federal regulations plus those coming under Obamacare will cost American taxpayers and businesses $1.8 trillion annually, more than twenty times the $88 billion the administration estimates, according to a new roundup provided to Secrets from the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute.

And it could grow, warned the author of the report, Clyde Wayne Crews, a CEI vice president.

Complying with Health and Human Services Department requirements alone, he revealed, costs $184 billion a year, yet regulators are still drafting the rules for the 2,400-page Obamacare law that kicks into gear in 2014.

Crews has made a working project of his “Tip of the Costberg” report which he regularly updates. In it, he compares the cost of regulations estimated by federal agencies to a much broader list of estimates from multiple federal and independent sources.

This is another testament to the true price we pay for new regulations, and matches up with the estimates of several other sources, but the negative effects of frivolous regulation and the inefficiencies of a relentlessly expanding bureaucracy can hardly be overstated — and the degree to which President Obama has increased our regulatory structure is a scandal. Opportunity costs, my friends: Every penny, every second that an individual, an entrepreneur, or a business spends complying with unnecessary red tape — not only is that a resource gone and done with, but it’s a penny or a second not spent doing something productive. Like, oh, I don’t know; maybe growing your business? Hiring people? Investing in new ideas? All the things, in a nutshell, that make our economy grow and prosper? Really, we can stop cutting the engines of economic growth off at the knees any day now! The immediate regulatory freeze of a Romney presidency can’t come soon enough.

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If government is going to be arbiter of fair and lawful competition, long as RICO, monopoly, and other LARGE laws aren’t being violated, then government is WAY too large.

Liam on May 21, 2013 at 8:44 PM

The real question, of course, is why DC — and other cities like it — even have so much innovation- and freedom-crushing red tape

How else are the bureaucrats going to keep the bribe money coming?

malclave on May 21, 2013 at 8:48 PM

How else are the bureaucrats going to keep the bribe money coming?

malclave on May 21, 2013 at 8:48 PM

That pretty much covers the topic.

Liam on May 21, 2013 at 8:53 PM

How do you pronounce this: womp

Whoomp (as in Whoomp, there it is)? Wahmp (rhymes with pomp)? something else?

cptacek on May 21, 2013 at 8:59 PM

Uber is a FANTASTIC company… naturally, it and the innovation it represents would be antithetical to the current oppressive environment this crony-based government has spawned…

dpduq on May 21, 2013 at 9:03 PM

simply provide customers with the option of hailing a taxi with a smartphone app is being put through the ringer in the nation’s capitol, too.

I hate to throw the grammar Nazi flag, but the word I bolded above should be wringer.

Gator Country on May 21, 2013 at 9:13 PM

How do you pronounce this: womp

Whoomp (as in Whoomp, there it is)? Wahmp (rhymes with pomp)? something else?

cptacek on May 21, 2013 at 8:59 PM

Woah! Erika’s quite the womp rat!

KS Rex on May 21, 2013 at 9:44 PM

Wringer is a ringer for “ringer”

Now if you’ll excuse, I have clothes to dry.

wolly4321 on May 21, 2013 at 9:45 PM

The real question, of course, is why DC — and other cities like it — even have so much innovation- and freedom-crushing red tape

And then those cities wonder out loud why they continually suffer ‘brain drains’ when the best and brightest flee for greener pastures.

It’s not rocket surgery.

Myron Falwell on May 21, 2013 at 9:56 PM

The real question, of course, is why DC — and other cities like it — even have so much innovation- and freedom-crushing red tape that diverts so much of what could otherwise be everybody’s profitable time and resources into fighting for permission to operate and completely legitimate and highly efficient business that creates real jobs and improves people’s lives. You’d think that small businesses daring to threaten the established order were doing something illicit, what with all the hoops they have to jump through these days — and that is no way to grow any kind of economy, be it on a micro- or macro-level.

Just like the medieval guilds, the purpose is to protect the existing businesses from aggressive competition.

And yes, this undermines the whole free enterprise system. Fortunately, the startups just view it as one more obstacle to get past, and manage anyway. But it’s still a waste of time and money.

There Goes the Neighborhood on May 22, 2013 at 10:26 AM

Had the opportunity to use Uber’s sedan service in L.A. a few weeks ago.

As soon as the service was ordered I knew that my car was 4 minutes away. I watched on the screen as it got closer and closer. When it hit 1 minute, I saw a black sedan on the opposite side of the street signaling to make a u-turn.

Contrast this with a year earlier when I called for a taxi in order to make the exact same trip. I was told that they were busy but they’d have someone there in 10 minutes. 15 minutes later I called and was told that someone would be there in 10 minutes. Another 15 minutes later I called and was told dispatch had sent someone and if they weren’t there in 5 minutes I should give them another call. 10 minutes after that I flagged down a passing cab and they got my business instead.

The Uber sedan service was $90 with tip. The taxi was $110 with tip.

If Uber wants to extend their business into the taxi realm (and they plan to keep the same level of service), it’s nothing but a boon to the residents of the cities they are operating in.

JadeNYU on May 22, 2013 at 11:02 AM

But Uber argues that the the taxi regulations issued last week, which go into effect June 1, would require it to link its payment system to the payment providers integrated into the new meters that taxis will begin installing this summer.

Wonder how much the preferred payment providers are paying DC?

unclesmrgol on May 22, 2013 at 11:43 AM