The 613 Commandments and the number of Federal regulations for automobiles

I have probably been in 613 Bible studies in my adult life, the number of rules/laws in the Old Testament for observant Jews. I often hear (and maybe I said) one didn't need so many laws to be religious, or to please God. I had hoped to be writing a blog about this, but just thinking about today, 6 a.m. when I got up to 9:30 a.m. when I drove to a hair appointment, I thought I could come up with 613 federal, state, municipal, township, plus thousands of regulations that will affect my life. That doesn't count the general commonsense rules we and our culture expect for us. Like brush your teeth; comb your hair; dress for the weather; check the rear view mirror before backing out.  Imagine that people living 4000 years ago could get by with only 613 and yet survived to the 21st century.

Since I would be leaving my apartment in the car I thought I'd just ask AI an easy question, "How many federal laws and regulations apply only to automobiles." Co-Pilot and I really got into an argument, and I kept feeding back to it its answer and telling Co-pilot that was not what I was asking, especially when it finally came up with 142 after telling me about all the revisions and subsections of the codes. After about 6 responses, AI began to blame it on me that I didn't accept its answer!! It really got snippy and tried to overwhelm me with BIG giant words no one would know except a government geek. Really, the gall!!

My final response:

Oh please! You can't answer a simple (for AI) question so it's my fault for the way I worded it? Is this Wizard behind the curtain a politician? "142 is an illustrative approximation, not an authoritative count, and any analytic or policy discussion should recognize this limitation and contextualize the number within the broader, dynamic regulatory environment."

Why do rich capitalists support Democrats?

People ask why Democrat billionaires, who are devoted capitalists, support Biden who says he'll be the most progressive president in our history. That's code for socialist/Marxist. Usually that's not good for capitalism. After all, the Soviets used to kill a peasant for owning one cow. Communism hasn't become kinder.

So here's the dirty little secret about capitalists. They want to make money. They can make more by getting the government to tie up other businesses in red tape or to shut them down completely with local, state and federal regulations. If they can make more buying off Union bosses, that will be done. It's part of overhead. If they can make more greasing the palms of senator XYZ in North Carolina than senator LMNOP of Illinois, they'll move the business south. It's the cost of doing business. Right now, many large corporations and entertainment venues (like sports) are really into "woke." One guy has the name of a rapist on his helmet. Kaepernick was encouraging the death of cops years ago. It's still about the money, and if it's blackmail, then it's just the cost of doing business.

Don’t wait for a vaccine

I've heard several politicians say we'll have to go very slow to reopen the economy until we have a vaccine. Hogwash.

There is no vaccine for AIDS; the vaccine for shingles only works for some; there are promising vaccines in the works for malaria which kills and cripples over a million a year, but nothing completely acceptable (and environmentalists removed the only safe protection, DDT, with no vaccine in sight); thousands of parents follow the advice they see on the internet and won't even accept measles, mumps and polio vaccines. Between the excruciatingly slow and thick government red tape and the outrage from various special interest groups about disparities and availability, it could be decades to get approval. The first black child who contracts covid19 after receiving a vaccine would have the 9th circuit throwing the whole thing out.

We don't have time, Governor DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton, to wait for approval of a vaccine. Democrats would call it racist, sexist, and homophobic if Trump even got it close to the finish line--and you know it!

Almost 30 years or more of brainwashing

Larry Burkett wrote a book, "What ever happened to the American dream," Moody Press, 1993. The year Bill Clinton took office. Usually that's a line for the left. Income gap. Dying unions. Shrinking middle class. What happened to the American dream? Burkett writes:

"There is enough material available on the impact of government regulations and their effect on the economy to write an entire book. But, in reality, regulations are just one part of the overall problem. The sad thing is that, with all the misinformation being aimed at the public via our media, America's children are being brainwashed into believing that all those regulations are in their best interests.”

Almost 27 years ago, and Burkett couldn't have imagined what was coming down the pike in the way of regulations. . . especially speech codes, mandatory anti-bias classes for college students, tearing down statues representing our history, use pronouns of choice or lose a job, drag queens for library story hour, hormone blockers for adolescents with consent of parents, doctors and psychologists, 9 month abortions called women's health, 50% of the citizenry bullied as deplorables by a national candidate, environmental disasters in California and skyrocketing homelessness due to disastrous regulations, and the civil war caused by Democrats' failure to accept an election. These weren't laws--they were regulations passed by unelected federal bureaucrats or local boards and committees and increasingly by digital giants infesting our freedoms.

Burkett said that increasing regulations translated to fewer jobs, lower salaries and diminished competition regardless of who was in the White House, but he was definitely on track when he referred to the brainwashing of children. President Trump is trying to bring back America, but because those children of a quarter a century ago have passed on their ignorance and government dependency to their own children, his accomplishments are ignored and his supporters called a cult.

What is the infrastructure candidates talk about?

Infrastructure.  Trump talked about it, so did Obama, so did Bush and Clinton.  We only seem to hear about it when someone (of either party) is running for president. But the federal government’s percentage of ownership and cost is very small, so why?

About 97% of what we call infrastructure  is owned and paid for by local governments and private interests.   I found this one really enlightening—I had no idea, but then, we don’t know what we don’t know.  In 2015, private infrastructure assets of $40.7 trillion were four times larger than state and local assets of $10.1 trillion, and 27 times larger than federal assets of $1.5 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Where the federal government does figure for this issue is regulation of and taxes on—I think Donald Trump being in real estate, realizes the heavy hand of government squeezing all businesses. 

https://www.cato.org/publications/tax-budget-bulletin/who-owns-us-infrastructure

Trump’s accomplishments—according to Trump

The White House listed the 12 categories and highlighted achievements for each. A summary is below:

Jobs and the economy

• Passage of the tax reform bill providing $5.5 billion in cuts and repealing the Obamacare mandate.
• Increase of the GDP above 3 percent.
• Creation of 1.7 million new jobs, cutting unemployment to 4.1 percent.
• Saw the Dow Jones reach record highs.

Killing job-stifling regulations

• Signed an Executive Order demanding that two regulations be killed for every new one creates. He beat that big and cut 16 rules and regulations for every one created, saving $8.1 billion.
• Signed 15 congressional regulatory cuts.
• Withdrew from the Obama-era Paris Climate Agreement, ending the threat of environmental regulations.

Fair trade

• Made good on his campaign promise to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
• Opened up the North American Free Trade Agreement for talks to better the deal for the U.S.
• Worked to bring companies back to the U.S., and companies like Toyota, Mazda, Broadcom Limited, and Foxconn announced plans to open U.S. plants.

Boosting U.S. energy dominance

• Expanded energy infrastructure projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline snubbed by Obama.
• Ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
• EPA is reconsidering Obama rules on methane emissions.

Protecting the U.S. homeland

• Laid out new principles for reforming immigration and announced plan to end "chain migration," which lets one legal immigrant to bring in dozens of family members.
• Made progress to build the border wall with Mexico.
• Ended the Obama-era “catch and release” of illegal immigrants.
• Boosted the arrests of illegals inside the U.S.
• Started the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program.

Helping veterans

• Signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act to allow senior officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire failing employees and establish safeguards to protect whistleblowers.
  
• Signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act. 
• Signed the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, to provide support. 
• Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017 to authorize $2.1 billion in additional funds for the Veterans Choice Program. 

Restoring confidence in and respect for America

• Trump won the release of Americans held abroad, often using his personal relationships with world leaders.
• Made good on a campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

List from Washington Examiner

The Rust Belt blames Obama, and rightly so

"Donald Trump hasn’t wasted time moving to revive America’s economic growth, with an emphasis on manufacturing. Critics may say the recent Carrier deal, which will save 800 American jobs, is small potatoes, but Mr. Trump’s pledge to reduce regulation is decidedly not. A new analysis confirms that the average industry’s regulatory risk has increased nearly 80% from 2010—and that this burden particularly hurts manufacturing and heavy industry. . . as regulatory risks grew and capital expenditures shrank, major corporations also cut jobs by more than 1.1 million. Among the biggest losers were heavy manufacturing, airlines, railroads, information technology and consumer products—America’s industrial core." The Rust Belt is Right to blame Obama, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 18, 2016

Why such a slow recovery?

Some liberals/progressives/Democrats say the slow recovery from the recession (theoretically it ended in June 2009 before the ARRA even kicked in) is because Obama was left such a mess by Bush. Recessions, small and large seem to roll around about every 10 years, and the recovery takes longer than the drop. The Great Depression of the 1930s is a good example, or bad, depending on your politics. Many believe Roosevelt extended it by about 5 years through government meddling; others believe he saved the country. But that was then, this is now.

Obama’s policies have created the slow recovery through costly new regulations and a very “efficient“ bureaucracy--which compounds the problem. President Obama’s regulators have completed their 600th major rule. A major rule imposes costs of more than $100 million. Bush also loved regulations, but Obama has exceed him by 20%.  And it isn't over til it's over.

"The Administration has already issued 40 major rules in 2016 and it may have as many as 50 more in the pipeline. In only the past few months the Administration has issued major rules on drones ($2.6 billion); a fiduciary rule for retirement savings ($31.5 billion); and new rules on Arctic drilling ($2.1 billion). Going forward, the Administration plans to finish up greenhouse gas standards for heavy-duty trucks ($31 billion), efficiency rules for manufactured housing ($4.1 billion), and more."

He'll push more through as he packs up to leave Washington, and can be confident if Hillary is elected that she will complete his economy killing plans. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-all-time-regulation-record-1470435716

He claims capitalism hasn't helped the poor, we need socialism

Why do you think capitalism has so poorly served the lower income and poor? Have you ever seen a list of the consumer goods that even low income people can afford in the U.S.? The typical poor household (in 2011), as defined by the government, has a car and air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there are children, especially boys, the family has a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. The household has a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave, also a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker. Do you know any low income people who don’t have a smart phone? (We don’t.)

 

I don’t know about you, but in 1960 when we set up our first apartment, we had a 10 year old car, b&w TV (gift from my in-laws), a refrigerator and stove (bought used) from this list, and we didn’t think we were poor, just newlyweds. Now we’re retired on pensions, and we have everything on this list, except the gaming systems.  We bought our first color TV in 1967, at $375, which would be about $2700 today’s money, and you can buy an HDTV set for $200 today. Same with computers and printers. I now have a desk top computer, a wireless printer, a laptop, an i-pad, a nook and an i-pod for less than my first computer in the 1990s.

The poor in U.S. also have larger houses than socialist countries and even before Obamacare, the poor reported not having a problem with healthcare, since we already had 5 systems to take care of them, plus ERs in hospitals were required to take them.

 

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty

 

The poor have less than the top 20%, true, no trips to China or Mongolia, no celebrity parties like the Obamas go to, no BMWs or Lexus in the drive-way, instead they probably go to Disney or 6 Flags or Cedar Point, but compared to poor or even socialist countries, U.S. people living at the poverty level (government standard) have a lot, and it's because of competition and capitalism, and that is increasingly being done overseas because of the enormous number of regulations and hostile business environment in the U.S., and the hostility of our government toward our golden goose—capitalism.We've become consumers instead of workers who consume. 

 

During the Obama years, only the top 20% have made any gains in wealth, everyone else has been flat, so those socialist and regulatory burdens are working well for the wealthy, and not so good for the rest of us.

Those calling for more gun control probably haven’t read the law

Before suggesting more gun control laws, how are current laws about possession, sale and shipment being enforced? Obama is releasing thousands already convicted of drug offenses. How long before they have a gun in hand--illegally under federal law? The Oregon shooter was clean on all these flags. He was anti-social, hated religion, had a crazy mother, divorced parents, was bi-racial, probably used marijuana as a teen, and narcissistically sought attention. But that fits millions who don't kill people. At least one in a very high position in government who is hostile toward many with different values.

• These categories in the The Gun Control Act include any person:
• Under indictment or information in any court for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
• convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
• who is a fugitive from justice;
• who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance;
• who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;
• who is an illegal alien;
• who has been discharged from the military under dishonorable conditions;
• who has renounced his or her United States citizenship;
• who is subject to a court order restraining the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of the intimate partner; or
• who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence (enacted by the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 104-208, effective September 30, 1996). 18 USC 922(g) and (n).

Federal Register Notice—Publication
- NICS Notice of Final Rule RIN 1110-AA27

Regulations
- Federal Firearms Regulation Reference Guide Index (pdf)
- National Instant Criminal Background Check System Regulations (pdf)
- NICS Amendments, Federal Register, July 23, 2004
- Brady Implementation (pdf)
- Privacy Act of 1974; Notice of New System of Records (Proposed Rule)
- Exemption of System of Records Under the Privacy Act
- Temporary Rule: Misdemeanor Crimes of Domestic Violence (ATF) (Proposed Rule)
- Proposed rulemaking cross-referenced to Temporary Rule

Related Sites
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) | ATF Forms

Statutes
- Brady Law (P.L. 103-159, Title I; 107 Stat. 1536)
- 1968 Gun Control Act, as amended by Brady Law (18 U.S.C. Chapter 44)
- Prohibited categories (18 U.S.C. § 922(g) (1)-(9) and (n))
- Lautenberg Amendment (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9))

Shortage of training and apprenticeships for skilled workers

83% of construction contractors are reporting a shortage of trained workers. Was it the last recession (ended in 2009) when 2 million were laid off, or something bigger like a failure in the education pipeline for new construction workers? Those factors include the dismantling of the public vocational and technical education programs, declining participation in union apprenticeship training and an increasing focus on college preparatory programs at the high school level. Surely, there must be some recent veterans who can stand in the gap.

 http://www.agc.org/…/2014_AGC_Workforce_Development_Plan.pdf

It’s unfortunate that many ideas in this report want the federal government to come to the aid of the unions, and they want legal recognition for illegal construction workers.  Local schools and communities and businesses need to step up.

One of the promises of the current administration was to streamline the regulations that choke small businesses, but the figure is still over $2 trillion in added costs according to a study by the  National Association of Manufacturers.  http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/09/10/study-federal-regulations-cost-us-businesses-2-trillion/

Federal Register, 2013

It contains over 80,000 pages of new rules, regulations, and notices all written and passed by unelected bureaucrats. The small stack of papers on top of the display are the laws passed by elected members of Congress and signed into law by the president. Mike Lee, U.S. Senator, Utah, Republican

So I glanced through the online index.  Quite an eye opener, and it’s not difficult to see what is holding back the economy and why the United States has dropped in the “Freedom Index.”

For instance, in 2013 the Food and Nutrition Service published 65 articles—42 of which were Notices, like this on Dec. 31, 2013, asking for public comments on an extension, without change, about the Child Nutrition Database.

Database Qualification Report.
Affected Public: Business for-profit
(Manufacturers of food produced for
schools.)
Form: FNS–710.
Estimated Number of Respondents:
32.
Estimated Number of Responses per
Respondent: 35.
Estimated Total Annual Responses:
1,120.
Estimated Time per Response: 2.0
Hours.
Total Annual Burden: 2,240 Hours.
Dated: December 24, 2013.

“Annual regulatory costs increased by more than $23.5 billion during President Barack Obama’s fourth year in office—and by a total of nearly $70 billion during the first term. While historical records are incomplete, that magnitude of regulation is likely unmatched by any Administration in the nation’s history. And, despite a much-touted initiative to weed out unnecessary regulations, only two major rule changes reduced regulatory burdens in 2012.” Heritage Foundation, May 1, 2013

“The most costly regulations were automotive fuel-economy standards issued by the EPA and DOT that will increase sticker prices by an estimated $1,800, followed by the EPA’s power plant emission limits that will hike utility bills for consumers.”

10 worst regulations of 2013

It was a short week because of the holiday

• Last week, 66 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register. There were 78 new final rules the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 33 minutes.
• All in all, 3,186 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
• If this keeps up, the total tally for 2013 will be 3,604 new final rules.
• Last week, 1,689 new pages were added to the 2013 Federal Register, for a total of 68,313 pages.
• At its current pace, the 2013 Federal Register will run 77,278 pages, which would be good for fifth all time. The current record is 81,405 pages, set in 2010.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. No such rules were published last week, keeping the total at 35 so far in 2013.
• The total estimated compliance costs of this year’s economically significant regulations ranges from $6.42 billion to $11.82 billion.
• So far, 289 final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2013.
• So far this year, 629 final rules affect small business; 86 of them are significant rules.

http://www.openmarket.org/2013/11/18/ceis-battered-business-bureau-the-week-in-regulation-90/

http://cei.org/10kc

Total costs for Americans to comply with federal regulations reached $1.806 trillion in 2012. For the first time, this amounts to more than half of total federal spending. It is more than the GDPs of Canada or Mexico.

2013 is on track to be the 5th largest in regulations, with 2010 being the winner.

Oil and gas production is increasing—on private land—new technologies make it cleaner and a smaller footprint

We could have a booming economy with enough gas to export, if Obama would just allow drilling on federal land (half of the western U.S.).  But rabid environmentalists gum up the works with mountains of paper work. Since 2007, natural gas production on federal lands fell by 33 percent while production on state and private lands grew by 40 percent. According to Congressional Research Service, the average time to process an Application for Permits to Drill (APD) on federal lands increased 41 percent from 2006 to 2011, extending the process by nearly 90 days. The sale and profits could lower our taxes and countries now enslaved economically by China and Russia's high prices for fuel could enjoy the benefits. Instead, he allows the greenies to keep him on the plantation of failed 19th century socialism. They don't care about the earth; they care about destroying the country.

http://energycommerce.house.gov/brand/new-report-chronicles-oil-and-gas-production-federal-lands-declining-under-obamas-watch

Who’s fault is it?

       

[snark] I know who ordered that pizza, who bought that bag of chips and forced open my mouth. Yes, someone in the 1% who needs to be taxed more so I'll eat more fruits and vegetables which I grew in my backyard.

Have you ever looked at photographs of the over 50 crowd in 1910 or 1950—before the days of fast food restaurants, or 32 oz. bottles of coke?  Yup.  They are fat.  What’s different today is how heavy the young people are.  For that I think we can give thanks to the women’s movement of the 1970s, and less time playing outdoors. Women in the 1970s didn’t really calculate how much of their income was being taxed at a confiscatory rate [tacked onto their husband’s rate], and they were tired after working and driving, so they began taking the kids out to eat.  The restaurant industry and the processed food industry responded to the market, and so the next generation barely knew how to make a white sauce or hard cook an egg.  That gave rise to cooking shows and gourmet clubs and more food advertising, which lent itself to more and more government regulation.

See how neatly this all fits together?  Instead of blaming an industry or an agency, just eat less and move more.

Cass Sunstein downplays the regulations by lying

"Cass Sunstein, the director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has been shopping around lower numbers [about the increase in regulations that are strangling the economy] that selectively compare Mr. Obama's first two years favorably with Mr. Bush's last two. Administrations are typically most active on the way out, and in any case the Bush regulatory record is nothing to crow about. But Mr. Sunstein's numbers are even more misleading because they only include the rules that his office reviews while excluding the prolific "independent" agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission.

This means that if Congress tells, say, the Securities and Exchange Commission to write a new rule, it doesn't enter Mr. Sunstein's tally. So it omits, for example, some 259 rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reregulation law along with its 188 other rule suggestions. It also presumes that Mr. Obama is a bystander with no influence over his own appointees who now dominate the likes of the National Labor Relations Board."

WSJ Regulation for Dummies

Blackburn: Net neutrality is 'Fairness Doctrine for the Internet'

From the Hill: Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke against net neutrality regulations today (Jan. 18) at an event put on by the Safe Internet Alliance. Representing the songwriters, singers, actors, producers and other entertainers in Memphis and Nashville, she said the creative community does not want the federal government to interfere with how they are able to get content to consumers via the Internet.

"Net neutrality, as I see it, is the fairness doctrine for the Internet," she said. The creators "fully understand what the Fairness Doctrine would be when it applies to TV or radio. What they do not want is the federal government policing how they deploy their content over the Internet and they want the ISPs to manage their networks and deploy the content however they have agreed on with ISP. They do not want a czar of the Internet to determine when they can deploy their creativity over the Internet. "They do not want a czar to determine what speeds will be available....We are watching the FCC very closely as it relates to that issue."

Blackburn: Net neutrality is 'Fairness Doctrine for the Internet' - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

And not surprisingly, Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Obama for technology policy, and favors strong regulations on tech issues. She wrote an op-ed for the NYT favoring regulation and needs to be watched closely.

Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act

Let's return to a representative form of government and make the Congress accountable.

"One of the most important political stories of 2011 will be regulation, as the backwash of the outgoing Congress hits the federal agencies and the White House drives its agenda via rule-making rather than democratic consent." Review and Outlook, WSJ, Jan 14, 2011

"the Constitution vested Congress with the duty to make laws, not to make vague suggestions about what it might be good for the law to be. And now there is a growing movement to force Members to take responsibility for the laws they pass, and to force Administrations to be accountable for the laws they create through regulation."

Review & Outlook: The Congressional Accountability Act - WSJ.com

Chevron ads

A few years ago, the Chevron ads were trying to tell us how beautiful it is that we have abundant supplies of natural energy. Now they are trying to tell us how green they are. I sort of like this ad, and I think we could all really be inspired by the words . . . saw it in the Wall Street Journal.

"Something's got to be done.

So we're going to do it."

Actually, oil, coal and natural gas are beautiful . . . put there by God through decayed vegetation for use later by the people he created. In God's economy nothing is wasted--not even dead plants. If you've ever created a mulch bed to put on your organic garden, it's the same principle.

The interesting thing about rich corporations is that they didn't get that way by hiring dumb people or designing and selling stupid ads. Chevron and all the other petroleum giants are heavy into wind, biofuels, carbon exchanges, and anything else that can be marketed as "green."

All our energy is still going to be controlled by the same global entities. When the EPA puts the Ohio coal miners out of work, you can be sure that the stockholders won't be hurt all that much, although the businesses in Ohio certainly will be. These companies have huge lobbies that control the regulations, and those regulations will always take advantage of the smaller companies--even those worth billions. The more companies, local or state, or national, that a global entity can put out of business through higher taxes and more regulations, the better for them. That's why you often see giant corporations supporting Democratic candidates. Follow the money.

How to kill jobs the Obama way