Bush Fuels Obama
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
John Stossel writes a column that both debunks a pro-Obama television spot featuring Bill
Clinton and demonstrates why mere lip-service to the right ideas usually causes
more harm than good.
Clinton then tries to scare viewers by telling them that Republicans want to "go back to deregulation. That's what got us in trouble in the first place."It is interesting to speculate on where our economy would be had Bush actually lived up to his reputation as a deregulator. Conversely, it is too bad for Romney and the GOP that Bush hadn't been more honest -- or better held to account by fellow Republicans -- about his actions. In either case, Barack Obama would be less able to pretend now that "deregulation" is somehow the cause of our economic depression.
Ah, the progressives' George W. Bush deregulation myth: Bush's anti-regulation crusade caused our problems. This is a lie that seems true because of constant media repetition. In fact, Bush talked deregulation but vastly increased the regulatory state. He hired an astounding 90,000 new regulators. Under Democrats and Republicans, regulation grows.
-- CAV
4 comments:
"In fact, Bush talked deregulation but vastly increased the regulatory state. He hired an astounding 90,000 new regulators. Under Democrats and Republicans, regulation grows." - John Stossel
Stossel's statistic is likely a convenient factoid (a case of apples and oranges), Gus, but it still raises begs a curiously missing statistic:
Lawyers currently head every significant federal regulatory unit (bureaucracy), and hire scores of lawyer underlings to perform the day-to-day regulatory enforcement efforts (low-level field agents, and office staff, of course are GS-types).
It should be apparent to almost everyone why this gem of a statistic is not available:
On average, how many pages of federal regulations (or revisions to existing regs) is required to add another lawyer to the federal payroll?
The answer I received (from a lawyer) was because I was the only one interested. If the public had such information, however, wider interest would be inevitable.
Shame on Stossel for being satisfied with a convenient and no doubt planted statistic.
"On average, how many pages of federal regulations (or revisions to existing regs) is required to add another lawyer to the federal payroll?"
What difference does that make?
Seriously, Gus, you want to be on record with an unthoughtful question like that?
Try substituting used car dealer, insurance salesman or barber for lawyer in the question:
"On average, how many pages of federal regulations (or revisions to existing regs) is required to add another lawyer to the federal payroll?" The answer will be close to naught. For lawyers, however, the answer is otherwise.
From my readings patronage is not a virtue of Objectivism.
I'm missing a joke here or a serious point of some kind, probably because I recall your many past comments attributing much more power to attorneys than they actually have over our political process.
If the electorate had the same kind of suspicion of entrusting great power to the government as our forefathers had, we would not have the vast regulatory state we have today.
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