Be Careful What You Wish For: Deregulation

Can you imagine the histrionics coming out of FOX Noise if a liberal governor or congressman had bilked Medicare for even a hundred dollars? But never mind, fraudster cum governor Rick Scott is touted as a conservative folk hero for his anti-regulation fervor.

"Deregulation" has that all-American, pioneer west kind of appeal. But that buckboard left the barn years ago. People love the idea of rugged individualism until some corporation hoodwinks, maims, poisons, suffocates or kills them or a loved one in the name of "free market capitalism." When Americans are offered specific examples of cost-benefit, time after time they choose regulation.

Which makes sense. According to an Office of Management and Budget 2005 report major federal regulations cost between $38 and $44 billion while providing benefits to taxpayers of $135 to $218 billion. With a GDP of $14.12 trillion that's a cost to the economy for safer air, water, food, drugs, workplaces, consumer products, etc. of about thirty cents per $100!

What's more, when the World Bank looked at the cost of regulations around the globe it ranked the U.S. third most small business friendly after Canada and Australia.

So what's with all the ginned-up hysteria over regulations? Nothing more than corporate and banking elites, abetted by their Republican toadies and right-wing echo chamber, whining about a smidgen of their profits preserving Americans' quality of life.

Here's the alternative to regulations: China, where seven miners die every day and major industrial and rail accidents kill thousands annually. It has an infant mortality rate of 25.3 per 1,000 live births. Those who do live have a good chance of dying from melamine adulterated milk, lead in their toys, arsenic in their drinking water, untreated sewage and toxic air pollution.

But boy oh boy their economy is booming! And the oligarchs are rolling in the Renminbi.

That's exactly what we're facing from Republicans for the next two years; more of the same intemperate deregulation, lax oversight and underfunded agencies that contributed mightily to the Wall Street implosion and BP oil spill. More vanishing corporate pension funds, mine disasters, environmental degradation, faulty tires, unsafe baby strollers, tainted food, recalled drugs, runaway cars, nursing home abuses, usurious credit charges and on and on and on.

Here's what Congressman Spencer Bachus R-AL thinks about regulations: "Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks." This from the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee!

Scott, whose meat cleaver approach to deregulation will unleash even more developer addled destruction of Florida's fragile ecosystems, had this to say: "What's the benefit of regulation, other than delay?'

Well for one thing, lest we forget, it was federal regulators who nabbed Scott and his Columbia/HCA and returned $1.7 billion in fines to U.S. taxpayers.