Why the Republican Attack on "Job-Killing Regulations" Is Dumb

Robert Reich
HuffPost

Republicans aim to end all "job-killing regulations" -- especially those that, according to House Speaker John Boehner, are "strangling" business with detailed requirements over health, safety, the environment, corporate governance and finance.

Here's another instance of where the White House's attempt to preempt Republican rhetoric (the president said last week his administration would root out all nonsensical and inefficient regulation) ends up legitimizing it -- and re-framing the public debate around an issue that's hardly central to what ails America.

The reason we have continued sky-high unemployment has nothing to do with excessive regulation. There was no sudden outpouring of federal regulation in 2007 before the economy tanked and millions lost their jobs.

If anything, the economy unraveled because of too little regulation. Wall Street went on a binge, remember? The Street could get almost free money from the Fed (which had reduced interest rates to near zero) and do just about whatever it wanted with it. Thirty years of deregulation, culminating with the dismantling of Glass-Steagall and the abject failure of regulators at the Fed and the SEC to use the authority they still had, enabled the Street to make bundles of money and expose the rest of the economy to unprecedented levels of risk.

(More here.)