“Radical regulations strangle small business and increase the costs for hard-working taxpayers,” said Congressman Scalise. “This much-needed legislation makes unelected bureaucrats think twice before proposing job-killing rules and regulations by increasing transparency and accountability. If our economy is ever to recover from six years of the president’s failed economic policies, we must rein in the out of control costs of this Administration’s radical regulations. I applaud Congressman Collins for joining me in introducing this bill and for being a leader in the House on holding this Administration accountable.”So far, so good. What's your plan for addressing it?
“Our federal budget tells Americans how much money the government spends. The national Regulatory Budget would tell them how much the government is really costing them,” Congressman Collins said. “Too many regulations, however they were intended, cost hardworking Americans in money and in opportunity. We can’t bring about reform and relief if we can’t identify the roots of the regulatory burden, and this is a straightforward and transparent way to do that. Congressman Scalise is a trusted leader on regulatory reform and I know with his leadership, we can get this moving.”
“Regulations are another impediment to investment. For free enterprise to work, it needs a reasonable regulatory system that ensures safety, protects consumers and achieves fair competition,” said U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). Putting the federal government on a National Regulatory Budget will help restrain the job-killing impulses of regulators and reduce obstacles to innovation that creates jobs."
Specifically, the National Regulatory Budget Act would establish the Office of Regulatory Analysis (OAR), which would be required to provide an annual regulatory analysis of federal rules for the upcoming fiscal year and their estimated cost on the economy. The legislation also creates a National Regulatory Budget, which allows Congress to set a cap on the total economic cost of new federal regulations to be implemented in the coming fiscal year. Congress would also set caps on the regulatory cost allowed by individual agencies.The solution you propose is to establish yet another Federal agency?
The legislation requires that all newly proposed regulations receive an OAR estimate before being implemented. Agencies that fail to comply with the OAR will be subject to a 0.5 percent reduction in their appropriation based on their previous budget amount.
Failure to comply with which means a half-percent cut in appropriations?
Back to the drawing board, boys.
4 comments:
The idea of an essentially predatory agency isn't a bad one, especially if its success in preying on other departments could be reflected in its budget somehow.
They haven't taken that step, and seem to be aiming at fostering cut-throat competition within a salary cap type system instead. This fails to grow the predator, but has the benefit of setting enemies against each other.
The penalty is a rounding error - but the most likely response for other agencies is non-compliance. Income tax was also small... at first. If agencies aren't thinking 2 steps ahead (and these are bureaucrats), they'll just scoff at 0.5%. Without considering that their aristocratic responses will create the pressure needed to make the number 10% in a hurry.
If you said 10% at the outset,you'd have a bigger fight. Looks like they're just trying to duck that.
I want to see the other books, the Money Laundering ones that go through the unions. I'm sure that'll be a lot more interesting than merely the budget, the superficial books.
Good to see you, Joe.
I like the idea of having a government agency that preys on other government agencies. Maybe you're right: we could have one more, purely for the purpose of eating the bloated regulatory agencies we already have. Give them a small taste of any funding they reclaim from other agencies, awards and bounties for good performance... maybe something can be done.
Nothing is going to get usefully settled in one step. See ACA and Dodd-Frank.
We won't get anywhere without taking a step; this is an adequate first one. No piece of legislation, no political matter, is a once and done thing--there are always subsequent adjustments to be made. The mistake too often made is to treat a snapshot as the final product in an evolving environment that has no final product. The trick, as in any matter, is to force follow-through and subsequent steps in the same direction.
A declining cap, for instance, and/or steadily rising per centage cuts in the budgets of those who think they can blow the thing off, would be among the useful subsequent steps, but attempting too big a step will only fail.
The bigger problem I see (though IMAO, not big enough to kill the thing on its face) is the loophole of limiting an agency's budget via the NRB but not via the regular budget, which the NRB sits beside rather than replaces.
Eric Hines
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