Obama Buys Into Business's Regulation Myth

By Margaret Carlson - Jan 19, 2011
Bloomberg Opinion

President Barack Obama’s announcement that he would require federal agencies to review regulations on their books and remove those that “stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive” made me wonder.

Which ones would those be? The piddling bit of regulation of the oil industry, the paucity of which led to the BP Plc oil spill?

Obama certainly couldn’t be thinking about the watered-down financial regulations enacted last year to replace the even weaker rules that helped turn Wall Street into a giant casino capable of making a few very wealthy and destroying the rest of us.

Is there anyone who regrets forcing the auto industry to produce cars that are equipped with seatbelts and don’t crumple in a 5 mph crash? If not for government intervention, don’t you think big tobacco would still be insisting that doctors prefer to smoke Camels?

(More here.)