While people across the country are closely following the pending GOP tax reform scheme, the sexual harassment and assault allegations and whatever the president is tweeting, they aren’t following the dismantling of the so-called administrative state. It’s the one place where Republicans of all stripes are in agreement and where they applaud the Trump administration. The executive branch is rapidly repealing or ending all kinds of regulations that protect workers and the environment while providing oversight to prevent abuses like the ones that led to the financial meltdown in 2008.
All of the regulations were put in place for a reason. While some may be outdated and need to either be amended or repealed, a lot of them fixed problems that harmed our nation. Our environment is cleaner and our workers are safer because of oversight and regulations.
Now, Donald Trump wants to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by appointing Mick Mulvaney as director. The CFPB was created in response to the abuses by Wall Street bankers that led the Great Recession. Mulvaney called the agency a joke and has already put a moratorium on regulations from the agency. The administration will likely remove protections for consumers and rules that restrict risky banking practices.
Back in the 1960s and 70s, US cities were shrouded in smog. Today, they’re not. In 1969, the Cuyohoga River was so polluted that it caught fire. Lake Erie was essentially a dead lake. Today, both have recovered thanks to environmental regulations. The bald eagle and numerous other birds were on the verge of extinction but have recovered today because of protections put in place by Congress.
In North Carolina, as recently as the early part of this century, mountain vistas were marred by smog. Cities in the state regularly had Code Red days that warned people to stay inside because the quality of the air was unhealthy. In 2002, though, the state legislature passed the Clean Smokestacks Act. Today, those vistas are again pleasing tourists and Raleigh hasn’t a Code Red day in five years.
Twenty years ago, large fish kills were an annual event in the Neuse River. Today, they’re a rare event because of regulations that reduced the amount of oxygen-depleting nutrients released into the water. Estuaries that provide breeding grounds for fish and other marine life are recovering, helping a resurgence in crab and oyster populations.
Almost all of the regulations were passed over the objections of Republicans who claimed that they would harm the economy while not accomplishing their goals. In most cases, they were wrong. Along the coast and in the mountains the regulations helped build a more robust tourism industry at a time when we were losing manufacturing jobs to bad trade deals.
Dismantling the administrative state, as the GOP calls it, might excite big businesses and Republican ideologues, but it should sound alarm bells for the rest of us. Most regulations were put in place to address serious problems. They’ve dramatically improved our environment and protected workers and consumers. Scrapping rules willy-nilly could put our health and economy at risk.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
So what do you to know about the Dodd Frank bill? I am a REALTOR and the Dodd Frank bill has created another long process in the buying of real estate. To many regulations that do not help the buyer, like attorneys increasing their fees for closing. So we have length the process to close on a home and increase the cost for what?
Sometimes it takes a while before questions show their face in bad real estate transactions I am a victim of such occurrences. Fortunately, things worked out, but a QUICKIE unregulated real estate law would have cost me greatly, I am thankful for laws that protect, regardless of the cost and delays.\
You know DB, if you’re old enough to remember 2008 (actually the high times of “no-documentation-necessary” and “no down payment required” real estate loans of the years preceding ’08), perhaps a lengthened borrowing process is not such a bad thing.
“… for what?” you ask, may I suggest just possibly for fewer foreclosures and short sales.
If you’d care to point out that DF regulations should be loosened for smaller banks, you’d have a point. The definition of “smaller” is a open for reasonable discussion.
Full disclosure: neither a realtor nor a lawyer be I. 😉
Uncle Grumpy
The Trump administration, the GOP Congress and, indeed, our own Republican General Assembly, are all operating from the unproven premise that almost all regulations by the government are bad and must be repealed or amended.
What goes for using a meat-ax approach to governmental budgets (e.g., “cut 10% across the board”) is being used on regulatory agencies. The reasons for this are ideological, (“government regulations are bad”), and are also practical–wholesale repeal is simply easy to understand and do. No thinking or work is required to sort out those regulations that are outdated and should be amended or replaced–you just kill all of them.
I ran into this meat-ax approach when Michigan Republican Governor Romney assigned me and my Associates in the Office of the Governor, the task of reducing 130 state agencies, boards and commissions into 20 principal departments as the new Michigan constitution required.
“Just abolish them all, and start over,” was the advice of some ideologues whose inherent suspicion of all government was their only motive. Fortunately, we came up with a reorganization plan–over the course of two years of study, hearings, and negotiations– that analyzed each state agency’s organization, policies and regulations. Sure it was hard work and it two years to complete, but worth it.
Changing the head of any agency with one of its most vocal, political, opponents, and the wholesale dumping of regulations is quick, but it IS easy for your political base to understand.
But to assume–as Republicans in the White House, Congress, and the state legislature often do–that if a policy or regulation was put in place by Democrats (or Republicans) it must be bad and deserves thoughtless and hasty dumping. That approach is stupid with often, immediate, unforeseen consequences for the people our government is designed to serve.
Of course, if you basically distrust government and suspect it of only doing harm, you just don’t care. And, that is too bad, isn’t it?