Tag Archives: Jobs

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New study finds that Obama’s regulations cost $46 billion per year

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From the Washington Examiner.

Excerpt:

Some 10,215 new federal regulations from the Obama administration are costing consumers, businesses and the economy overall $46 billion annually, more than five times the regulatory price tag of former President Bush in his first three years in office. Worse: just implementing those regulations had a one-time additional cost of $11 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis provided to Washington Secrets.

Ironically, Bush instituted more regulations, 10,674, but they cost just $8.1 billion annually, said the Heritage report, titled “Red Tape Rising: Obama and Regulation at the Three Year Mark.” It will be released Tuesday.

The analysis backs up complaints from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups that the president’s regulations are stalling the economy and employment growth. It also calls into question Obama’s promise to put the brakes on new regulations and his State of the Union bragging about issuing less red tape than Bush.

The fact is, said Heritage’s review, hundreds more costly regulations are coming, especially those targeting energy companies and Wall Street. They threaten “to further weaken an anemic economy and job creation,” said Heritage’s James Gattuso and Diane Katz.

[…]The $46 billion price tag calculated by Heritage is staggering, as are those hitting the economy the hardest. Just consider the regulations tagged as “major” for costing $100 million or more. Obama’s team issued 106 on private industry since taking office, compared to 28 by Bush. Last year alone, Obama’s administration issued 32 major regulations impacting everything from clothes dryers, to toy labels.

Heritage said that most expensive regulation of 2011 was from the Environmental Protection Agency, which added five major rules costing $4 billion. Among them, stricter limits on industrial and commercial boilers and incinerators, for a cost of $2.6 billion annually for compliance.

The regulations are also hitting workers through higher fees on items such as checking accounts.

The link to the Heritage Foundation study is here. The title of the report makes me think of “Red Storm Rising“, an excellent novel written by conservative author Tom Clancy.

News

Europe’s socialist debt crisis: who suffers most? Can bailouts fix it?

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This is the most popular article on Investors Business Daily right now.

Excerpt:

Rational or not, Greece’s street riots and emigration rates signify one thing: Socialism offers very little to the young. So why is the EU’s $172 billion bailout geared toward saving so much of the failed socialist system?

As Europe prepares to deliver a historic $172 billion bailout to Greece in a deal announced Monday, it’s pretty much a given that the austerity conditions required, in the absence of a true free market, will hit youth hardest. Athens will be trashed by another youth rampage, as many youths blame the pain on something other than Greece’s deeply rooted socialism.

A bigger effect will come from Greeks who do recognize reality. They won’t riot. They’ll leave, voting with their feet just as Eastern Europe’s youth once did.

The young in both cases are victims of socialism, which claims to make people equal but, in reality, penalizes the young. For Greece, a country already gutted by a below-replacement birth rate and an aging population, that’s a disaster.

It’s not just Greece, but also every EU state with institutionalized socialism — where high government spending seeks to create a warm blanket insulating everyone from risk, but instead has led to bankruptcy.

[…]One out of five jobs in Greece is held by a bureaucrat, which is why unemployment among the under-24s runs at 42%. A 2010 poll shows that seven out of 10 Greek college graduates seek to leave.

Some 9% of Greek college graduates and at least 51% of Greece’s Ph.D.s are already gone, according to University of Macedonia demographer Lois Lambrianidis.

What jobs there are come from the bottom of a two-tier labor system that shields older workers in Greece’s rigid labor market. Young Greeks earn a 500-and-change euro monthly minimum wage as older workers doing the same work make 700.

In contrast, immigrant-magnet Australia holds packed job fairs at its Athens embassy. In 2011, it took in 249,000 immigrants. In 2012, a 20% rise is expected.

[…]Meanwhile, Spain’s EFE News reports that the Spanish Embassy in Santiago, Chile, has seen a 10% rise in registered nationals to 48,000, while Chile reports a 25% rise in work permits issued to Spanish citizens.

It’s not just jobs that are penalizing Europe’s young. Housing is stacked against youth, too. Eurostat reports that in 2008, 46% of young European adults ages 18-34 lived with their parents — 51 million people.

The two-tier job market, which leans heavily toward unstable contract employment, affects housing choices for the young. Other socialist measures designed to protect current owners against the market also shut out the young.

Perhaps most hostile of all to youth are the EU’s outdated state pension systems — which force the young to pay the pensions of the old as the population shrinks.

In Italy, 14% of all economic output goes to pensions. It’s no coincidence that states attracting Europe’s young, like Chile and Australia, have privatized their social security systems that give youth a real shot at building personal wealth and a credible pension through their own efforts, instead of political favoritism.

This is the direction that the United States is also headed in. What I find mystifying is why young people in the United States are voting for these policies. Young people here have a higher rate of unemployment, and they ought to know that all of these entitlement programs won’t be there for them when they retire. What possible reason could they have for voting for more and more government control?

News

Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich’s views on global warming

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Rick Santorum does not accept global warming socialism

From WPXI News.

Excerpt:

About 500 people showed up Monday at a local diner in Steubenville, Ohio, to support former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum as he gave a policy speech.

Santorum said President Barack Obama is pushing a radical environmental agenda that unwisely limits energy production and turns its back on science.

Santorum told voters in Steubenville Monday that science is on the side of those who want to aggressively produce more oil and natural gas in America. He said the notion of global warming is not climate science, but “political science.”

Santorum said Obama and his allies want to frighten people about new oil-exploration technologies so they can get their dollars and turn them over to politicians to win elections “so they can control your lives.”

Here’s Santorum in his own words: “There is no such thing as global warming”

And more Santorum: Global warming is “junk science”

Santorum calls global warming a “hoax” and opposes cap and trade carbon taxes:

Do you think that Rick Santorum would build the Keystone XL pipeline and create the 20,000 jobs? YES HE WOULD.

Mitt Romney accepts global warming socialism

What about Mitt Romney’s view on global warming?

Excerpt:

On the environment, Romney seemed interested in carving out an agenda largely in line with the state’s most fervent activists on the left.

After he took office in 2003, some state employees and activists were nervous about how the new governor would approach the climate-change issue. Massachusetts had already reached an agreement with other Northeastern states and some Canadian provinces on a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Romney surprised them by taking a hands-on approach, personally helping craft a “Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan” that he unveiled in 2004.

He reorganized the state government to create the Office of Commonwealth Development — with the former president of the liberal Conservation Law Foundation, Douglas Foy, as its head — to better coordinate climate work and sustainable-growth activities among different agencies.

As he worked on the plan, according to people familiar with the process, he even overruled some objections by his chief of staff, who criticized the plan as potentially too left-leaning.

Romney backed incentives for buying efficient vehicles, tougher vehicle emissions rules and mandatory cuts in emissions linked to global warming.

The plan not only called for reducing the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and cutting them another 10 percent by 2020, but it said that “to eliminate any dangerous threat to the climate . . . current science suggests this will require reductions as much as 75-85 percent below current levels.”

[…]Beyond the state climate plan, Romney repeatedly pushed to promote clean energy and cut the use of fossil fuels.

In March 2003 he pledged to buy up to $100 million worth of electricity from renewable sources. That month, he declared, “the global warming debate is now pretty much over.”

Here’s Mitt Romney in his own words:

Do you think that Mitt Romney would create the Keystone XL pipeline and create the 20,000 jobs? I say NO HE WOULD NOT.

Newt Gingrich accepts global warming socialism

What about Newt Gingrich’s view on global warming?

Excerpt:

Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich, as a U.S. House representative from Georgia in 1989, was among the co-sponsors of a sweeping global warming bill that, among other things, called for an international agreement on population growth.

[…]The… Global Warming Prevention Act of 1989 (H.R. 1078) had144 co-sponsors, the majority of which were liberal Democrats such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), then-Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). There were only 25 Republican co-sponsors, which included Rep. Gingrich.

The legislation… set a national goal of reducing carbon dioxide levels by at least 20 percent by the year 2000 “through a mix of federal and state energy policies,” as well as “the establishment of an International Global Agreement on the Atmosphere by 1992.”

In addition, the legislation’s summary includes the section “Title XI: World Population Growth.” That section states: “World Population Growth — Declares it is the policy of the United States that family planning services should be made available to all persons requesting them. Authorizes appropriations for FY 1991 through 1995 for international population and family planning assistance. Prohibits the use of such funds for: (1) involuntary sterilization or abortion; or (2) the coercion of any person to accept family planning services.

[…]In 2008, Gingrich appeared alongside Rep. Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a television ad calling for action to address the apparent global warming problem.

Here’s Newt Gingrich in his own words:

Do you think that Newt Gingrich would create the Keystone XL pipeline and create the 20,000 jobs? I say NO HE WOULD NOT.

Which one of these three candidates is the real conservative?

Rick Santorum

Mitt Romney