7/06/2011

Obama's misleading claims about regulations


From Obama's press conference last week:
Keep in mind that the business community is always complaining about regulations. When unemployment is at 3 percent and they’re making record profits, they’re going to still complain about regulations because, frankly, they want to be able to do whatever they think is going to maximize their profits.

I’ve got an obligation to make sure that we’re upholding smart regulations that protect our air and protect our water and protect our food. If you’re flying on a plane, you want to make sure that there are some regulations in place to assure safety in air travel, right? So there are some core regulations that we’ve got to maintain. . . .


Obama's claim about doing an unprecedented review of regulations is simply false.

But what I have done — and this is unprecedented, by the way, no administration has done this before — is I’ve said to each agency, don’t just look at current regulations — or don’t just look at future regulations, regulations that we’re proposing, let’s go backwards and look at regulations that are already on the books, and if they don’t make sense, let’s get rid of them. . . .


Even Politifact claims:

Obama claims that his administration is doing something unprecedented -- "no administration has done this before," he said -- by having each agency review existing regulations, with an eye toward eliminating ones that don't make sense. Lots of presidents have done that. We rate Obama's statement Pants On Fire.


Obama was also dishonest in claiming no responsibility for the NLRB decision on Boeing, preventing the company from building a plane in South Carolina. It is an independent board, but it is a board whose majority Obama has appointed. He knew what would happen when he put a majority of union members on it. More from the press conference:

Now, you asked specifically about one decision that was made by the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB, and this relates to Boeing. Essentially, the NLRB made a finding that Boeing had not followed the law in making a decision to move a plant. And it’s an independent agency. It’s going before a judge. So I don’t want to get into the details of the case. I don’t know all the facts. That’s going to be up to a judge to decide.

What I do know is this — that as a general proposition, companies need to have the freedom to relocate. They have to follow the law, but that’s part of our system. And if they’re choosing to relocate here in the United States, that’s a good thing. And what it doesn’t make — what I think defies common sense would be a notion that we would be shutting down a plant or laying off workers because labor and management can’t come to a sensible agreement. . . .

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