Thursday, September 29, 2011

Cost Benefits of Regulation

Regulatory Benefits FAR EXCEED Regulatory Costs 
 

The 1st ever draft report estimates that major federal regulations provide benefits of from $135 billion to $218 billion annually, while costing taxpayers between $38 billion and $44 billion. 



Costs and benefits of some other major federal regulatory programs of 1st draft included:

  • Energy: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
    Benefits: $4.7 billion
    Costs: $2.4 billion

  • Health & Human Services: Food and Drug Administration
    Benefits: $2 to $4.5 billion
    Costs: $482 to $651 million

  • Labor: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
    Benefits: $1.8 to $4.2 billion
    Costs: $1 billion

  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NTSHA)
    Benefits: $4.3 to $7.6 billion
    Costs: $2.7 to $5.2 billion

  • EPA: Clean Air Regulations
    Benefits: $106 to $163 billion
    Costs: $18.3 to $20.9 billion

  • EPA Clean Water Regulations
    Benefits: $891 million to $8.1 billion
    Costs: $2.4 to $2.9 billion


The most recent report, 2010 Found Here, contains detailed cost and benefit figures on dozens of major federal regulatory programs, as well as the criteria used in making the estimates.

It is shameful for Republican Party operatives to string along less informed small business men/women whom have no idea of the overall benefits major government regulations provide for them. 

GOP politicians continue to whip up less informed sentiment in order to make the government the enemy. 

Average citizens, good, simple and hard working are led astray from being thoughtful "Curious George" type, independent thinkers who investigate all sides and make informed decisions.

#VOTE2012 #GOP #FAIL   

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Truth About Our Tax Base

And the affects on our citizens ability to prosper when America Prospers!


First let's have a look at the Federal Income Tax Portion of All Federal Revenue for FY 2009: in the World According to Karl Rove and the Republican Party this is the only part of tax revenue that matters!
















While these numbers are truthful as reported they fail to tell the whole story. In that effect they distort reality providing the wrong perception of how our government is funded; please read on.



A look at All Federal Revenues: in the World According to United States of America FY 2009 Budget!



 As you see Federal Income Taxes account for 44% of revenue required to operate government in FY 2009!

So the fact that the top 1% or the top 5% are paying an unfair share of our government operating revenue is dispelled. Showing half the facts provides half the picture, showing all the facts provides a very different view that concludes Karl Rove and the Republican party are trying to mislead the people.


Now let's take a look at our State & Local Tax payments. Do you see the picture that is developing here?

















Adding all citizen tax payments, to State, Local and Federal Governments together, you see that our tax system is regressive and that the poor, lower middle and middle class pay the greatest portion of taxes in order to operate our governments!

Reality is the total revenue to operate all forms of our government come from a regressive tax rather than the progressive tax our Republican Party wants you the citizen to think we actually have in place today.

Our regressive tax policy has increased the income equality for all American Citizens starting near 1976 when the Republican Party began the demonetization of the opposition, starting with "Jimmy Carter"!

Today's #GOP demonizes everybody that threatens the benefits they have created for the upper class of American Citizens.

Cry "Class Warfare" against any one wanting to change our regressive tax policies to equalize the opportunity to share in America's Prosperity today!



The facts behind the rhetoric are important to know before you vote for any elected official in 2012.


Click Here: Misconceptions & Realities About Who Pays Taxes



#VOTE2012

Thursday, September 22, 2011

U.S. Federal Debt

Time series of U.S. federal debt overlaid with partisan affiliation of the White House and the Congress.




During the George W. Bush Presidency our debt to gross Domestic product ratio increased 28 percent.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Reject Republican Party Politics

Today's GOP has worked hard to demonize government regulation. They repeat time after time their mantra with keen interest in convincing the rest of America's citizens that the Republican party is correct about government regulations being bad for the country.

The GOP goes on and on about these are #JobKillingRegulations, #JobCrushingRegulations, and according to House Speaker John Boehner, are “strangling” business with detailed requirements over health, safety, the environment, corporate governance and finance.

The favorite new word on the GOP euphemism list is #Uncertainty.

Job creators are uncertain, small business owners and entrepreneurs can't put capital at risk when the government tax status is unknown and there maybe a new government regulation offering new rules to follow; "Wall Street" is uncertain due to new financial regulations of the #DoddFrank Bill, business is uncertain due to the affects of the "Affordable care Act" [ #Obamacare ], business is uncertain and will not invest due to potential rise in income and other tax statuses,



Republicans are hell-bent on cutting spending and preserving the goose that laid the golden egg; the gilded class [rich or of a higher social class ] tax breaks; are having no qualms at all about the economic uncertainty they almost single-handedly  are responsible for creating.

Today's Republican Party (GOP) has worked very hard to Starve Government of Revenue needed to be effective on all things. They cut taxes during the George W, Bush administration while continuing to spend money like drunken sailors. Adding further insult to injury, the entered the United States of America into two wars which were paid for off budget with emergency appropriations bills adding to the countries deficits and debt.





Federal regulations are the actual enforceable laws authorized by major legislation enacted by Congress.

The Clean Air Act, the Food and Drug Act, the Civil Rights Act are all examples of landmark legislation requiring months, even years of highly publicized planning, debate, compromise and reconciliation in Congress. Yet the work of creating the vast and ever-growing volumes of federal regulations, the real laws behind the acts, happens largely unnoticed in the offices of the government agencies rather than the halls of Congress.

 The facts are more common sense than one would think.  Regulations are by need, usually social, economic or process oriented.

Social regulation prohibits production of products in certain ways or with certain characteristics that are harmful to public interests such as health, safety, and the environment and may demand products be produced in certain ways or with certain characteristics that are beneficial to these public interests.

Economic regulation prohibits firms from charging prices or entering or exiting lines of business that might cause harm to the economic interests of other firms or economic groups.

Process regulations impose administrative or paperwork requirements such as income tax, social security, food stamps, or procurement forms. Most costs to businesses result from program administration, government procurement, and tax compliance efforts.


All regulatory agencies begin rule-making by publishing draft regulations in the Federal register asking for comment from all interested parties.

Most of the complex and confusing verbiage that finds its way in to the final regulation published in our Code of Federal Regulations is the result of industry lawyers and lobbyists doing their best to exploit the process by creating loopholes in their clients favor to avoid doing what lawmakers intend.
 
Government regulation is good, so long as it receives the same type of scrutiny and process improvement effort that all systems deserve in order to succeed.

#JobCreators deploy capital regardless of the external environmental conditions so long as the total cost of capital invested in the business finds sufficient customers at an appropriate price in order to deliver a reasonable rate of return to the investor.

Good business people account for all operating expenses to determine is the risk of investment is worth the anticipated reward:
  • accounting expenses
  • maintenance and repairs, such as snow removal, trash removal, janitorial service, pest control, and lawn care
  • advertising
  • office expenses
  • supplies
  • attorney fees and legal fees
  • utilities, such as telephone
  • insurance
  • property management, including a resident manager
  • property taxes
  • travel and vehicle expenses
  • salary and wages
  • raw materials

In short, the small business & entrepreneur will only make an investment in new hires when their business can no longer meet their customer demand as the operation is presently configured. When demand increase they will make a determination on whether their business needs more people or equipment to make their firm more productive in order to meet excess demand.

Government regulation and/or tax structures do not create uncertainty for small business people or entrepreneurs.  They are only two of many factors good business people use to calculate their return on investment for any given venture.



Reject the Republican Parties attempt to remove the revenue any good government needs to operate effectively for their citizens. Government must be funded to properly perform continuous improvements to increase it's capabilities for citizens.

"We the People" reject the #GOP thought that government regulation, and therefore government is bad.

"We the People" reject the #GOP notion that government has created #Uncertainty and this is the reason why we have no new #JobCreation.

"We the People" reject the #GOP religion that "Trickle Down Economics" works as an economic road to prosperity.

Reject the Republican Policies on Good Government today!

Tell the wimpy Democratic Party to get off their ass and stand for something coherent or perish!

[]

Book Review: "Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street & Washington Fought to Save the Financial System – & Themselves", By Andrew Ross Sorkin



Publisher Synopsis:


From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, Russia and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego, greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world's economy.

"We've got to get some foam down on the runway!" a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve of New York would tell Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury Secretary about the catastrophic crash of the world's financial system would experience.

Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail recreates all the drama and turmoil, revealing never-disclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle. This true story is not just a look at banks that were ‘too big to fail’, it is a real-life thriller about a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were ‘too big to fail’.

To Learn More!

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Sunday, September 11, 2011

Book Review: "Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy," by Raghuram G. Rajan

Publisher Synopsis:

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.

Rajan shows how the individual choices that collectively brought about the economic meltdown--made by bankers, government officials, and ordinary homeowners--were rational responses to a flawed global financial order in which the incentives to take on risk are incredibly out of step with the dangers those risks pose. He traces the deepening fault lines in a world overly dependent on the indebted American consumer to power global economic growth and stave off global downturns. He exposes a system where America's growing inequality and thin social safety net create tremendous political pressure to encourage easy credit and keep job creation robust, no matter what the consequences to the economy's long-term health; and where the U.S. financial sector, with its skewed incentives, is the critical but unstable link between an overstimulated America and an underconsuming world.

In Fault Lines, Rajan demonstrates how unequal access to education and health care in the United States puts us all in deeper financial peril, even as the economic choices of countries like Germany, Japan, and China place an undue burden on America to get its policies right. He outlines the hard choices we need to make to ensure a more stable world economy and restore lasting prosperity.

Remember, this book won an award the: "Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2010".


Learn More Here!

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Saturday, September 10, 2011

About Me

My photo
Elections matter-openly cynical of government business as usual-Supreme Court Justices 5-4 open warfare on my Individual Liberty-Teach as Knowledge is Power!