Harry Reid: “There Aren’t Any” Regulations That Do “Broad Economic Harm”
“While it’s proper to guard against and remove onerous regulations, and we need to do that, my Republican friends have yet to produce a single shred of evidence that the regulations they hate so much do the broad economic harms they claim,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid in a floor speech in the Senate today. “That’s because there aren’t any.”
I guess depends on what your definition of “broad economic harm” is.
I think think of several regulations that have done economic harm right off the top of my head. The Obamcare requirements for expanded health insurance has already driven up the cost of health insurance. The ban on incandescent light bulbs is driving up the cost of lighting. The White House’s sandbagging of the Keystone XL pipeline has cost thousands of jobs.
And I’m sure we could get more in depth.
For Reid to claim that government regulation does no harm is ridiculous. Unless everyone was already doing what the government regulation would require them to do (in which case why would you need the regulation?), there’s always an impact. There’s always a cost.
Now, we can debate about whether or not the cost of the regulation is worth whatever the regulation will accomplish, but to deny that cost is to deny reality.
Tags: Economy, harry reid, jobs, regulations
