Obama Believes Big Government Regulation Has Helped the US Economy

Last wednesday, Mitt Romney was speaking in San Antonio and he criticized Obama for his regulatory strategy. The Washington Post characterized Romney’s speech this way:


He [Romney] said the administration has driven up the price of energy and made it harder for U.S. businesses to sell goods and services overseas. He said the health care overhaul has stopped businesses from hiring more workers. And he said businesses were being hurt by the “ever-growing intrusiveness of federal regulations.”

Comparing Bush to Obama is not as useful as one would think. They are very similar in much of their policy. Regulations just being one of them.

What is missed often in a discussion of regulations is that they favor larger corporations and less diversity in the market. This makes it inherently more unstable. Smaller companies and family businesses can't afford to compete and often shed jobs. These are the known job creators, and we are tying one hand behind their back.

One day we will realize that the most regulated sectors create the monopolies we despise. The banking sector is so highly regulated that we produce banks that are 'too big to fail'. We should let them fail and free up the smaller ones to take over.

The issue of Obama’s regulatory record came up most powerfully about a year ago, and now it’s just one talking point among many. The charge is that Obama has over-regulated the economy and that this attitude toward regulation has killed jobs. The record is much more complex, and some of it was debated by Cass Sunstein, Obama’s regulator, in an op-ed a while back.


The record however, as evidenced by this report, is that Obama has benefitted U.S. citizens with regulation, primarily through environmental regulations, and before one starts to go off on environmentalism, it’s worth noting that the previous Bush did the exact same thing.

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President Obama Big Government Regulation Has Helped the US Economy

It doesn't really make sense does it? Regulation that stifles growth and even survival of smaller businesses that can't afford lobbyists is somehow what promotes it's existence? That doesn't make sense on any level. Heavy regulation kills jobs, kills growth, and kills markets for services and products.