The Administrative State is Expanding Quickly Under Biden. By the Issues and Insights Editorial Board.
In the span of a few weeks, the Biden administration has proposed regulations that would effectively ban gas stoves, force a massive shift to electric cars, sharply raise the cost of dishwashers, increase loan costs for frugal borrowers, regulate puddles as “navigable waters,” and limit hunting and fishing across the country. It will soon release a proposed rule targeting power plants with hugely expensive carbon capture mandates.
This is just the tip of the spear.
Navigable water. So now the regulations of navigable waters apply. The same rule was used here in Western Australia to effectively seize regulatory control of farmland of political opponents of the bureaucrats in 2008, as we know from experience.
As the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Clyde Wayne Crews put it recently, “President Biden is leading an unprecedented expansion of the administrative state. In two years, his administration has imposed 517 regulatory actions with some $318 billion in total costs.”
Following Europe with only dishwashers and washing machines that don’t work:
The newest attack on freedom, Biden’s dishwasher regulation, would require new machines to use 27% less power and 34% less water, making already barely functioning dishwashers virtually useless. (It takes nearly three hours for dishwashers today to “clean” dishes. President Donald Trump tried to loosen these anti-consumer mandates.)
Another rule would eliminate 98% of all top-loading washing machines on the market today. There are new efficiency mandates in the works for everything from microwaves to toothbrush chargers.
Compliance costs are a major drag on the economy but a major boon for parasites:
The Securities Exchange Commission, meanwhile, wants publicly traded companies to disclose the “climate risks” of their operations. The rule “could shift $18.4 billion to consulting firms, lawyers, and data providers,” according to an analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence.
Keep in mind that the cost of these new regulations will get added to the existing pile that already imposes a mind-boggling $2 trillion in compliance costs — an amount roughly equal to Canada’s entire GDP.
Biden says he’s “advancing an ambitious regulatory agenda to protect public health and secure environmental justice.” A more accurate description would be he’s “advancing a tyrannical state that is crippling the economy and denying Americans basic freedoms.” …
For decades, Congress has handed over virtually unlimited power to regulatory agencies to dictate our lives. Republicans have in the past acted like Jack Sparrow, who thought his jar of dirt could keep the Kraken at bay. They’ve counted n the courts or a business-friendly administration would stave off the beast.
But the courts give regulatory agencies a wide berth, and as we’ve just seen, the dent made in regulations by Trump has had no impact on the regulatory beast.
No more. Without a more permanent legislative solution, we always will be at the mercy of the ravenous regulatory state. The Kraken must be destroyed once and for all, if we are ever to live free.
Yes but think of all the good bureaucratic jobs for lefties.
