Obama Sets New Record For Regulations The Wall Street Journal April 17, 2014
Anyone wondering why the U.S. economy can't seem to grow at its usual pace should examine one product category where production is booming: federal regulation. Washington set a new record in 2013 by issuing final rules consuming 26,417 pages in the Federal Register. While plenty of government employees deserve credit for this milestone, leadership matters. And by this measure President Obama has never been surpassed in the Oval Office. The latest rule-making tally comes from the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Wayne Crews, who on April 29 will publish his annual review of federal regulation in "Ten Thousand Commandments." This is important work because politicians and the media treat regulation as a largely cost-free public good. Mr. Crews knows better. Congress may be mired in gridlock, but the federal bureaucracy is busier than ever. In 2013 the Federal Register contained 3,659 "final" rules, which means they now must be obeyed, and 2,594 proposed rules on their way to becoming orders from political headquarters. The Federal Register finished 2013 at 79,311 pages, the fourth highest total in history. That didn't match President Obama's 2010 all-time record of 81,405 pages. But Mr. Obama can console himself by noting that of the five highest Federal Register page counts, four have occurred on his watch. The other was 79,435 pages under President George W. Bush in 2008. And the feds aren't letting up. Mr. Crews reports that there are another 3,305 regulations moving through the pipeline on their way to being imposed. One hundred and ninety-one of those are "economically significant" rules, which are defined as having costs of at least $100 million a year. Keep in mind that the feds routinely low-ball their cost estimates so the public will continue to think regulation is free. Drawing largely on government statistics, Mr. Crews estimates that the overall cost of regulatory compliance and its economic impact is about $1.9 trillion annually. This means that the burden of complying with federal rules costs roughly the annual GDP of Australia, Canada or Italy. This regulatory tax makes U.S. businesses less competitive, but it also burdens every American because it is
embedded in the prices of all goods and services. Mr. Crews estimates that "U.S. households 'pay' $14,974 annually in regulatory hidden tax," or 23% of the average income of $65,596. All of this is the fruit of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and the manifold other expansions of government that have marked the Obama years. By far their greatest and most tragic cost has been slower economic growth, which has meant fewer jobs, lower incomes and diminished economic possibilities for tens of millions of Americans.
Kerry Agrees To Defuse Ukraine Crisis While U.S. Sends Military Aid To Junta Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com April 17, 2014
Kerry meeting nullified by Pentagon announcement to send military aid to Ukraine Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly reached “a compromise, of sorts,” on the situation in Ukraine. Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, the top diplomats agreed that all parties in the dispute would refrain from “violence, intimidation, or provocative actions” and that all “illegal armed groups will be disarmed.” Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, during a joint news conference with the Defense Minister of Poland, Tomasz Siemoniak, said the United States will exacerbate the situation by providing “non-lethal military assistance” to the
regime in Kyiv. The material will consist of “health and welfare items and other supplies,” including medical supplies, helmets, sleeping mats, water purification units, shelters, small power generators, hand fuel pumps, and other items that will be used by the Ukrainian military. Last month, the Pentagon sent several hundred thousand meals-ready-to-eat (MREs) to the Ukrainian military. “The United States continues to stand with Ukraine. And earlier this morning, I called Ukraine’s acting defense minister to tell him that President Obama has approved additional non-lethal military assistance for health and welfare items and other supplies,” Hagel said during the news conference. The announcement came after the Obama administration put a stop to a previous aid commitment, including body armor and night-vision goggles. Making a further mockery of the talks between Kerry and Lavrov, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the United States should send lethal military aid to the coup. “Here is what I would do: I would be sending arms to the Ukrainian army. I would encourage the European Union to expand and take in Ukraine… I would provide serious assistance to the Ukrainians so that they could defend themselves” against pro-Russian activists in eastern Ukraine, McConnell said. McConnell also said the United States needs to confront Russia more forcefully. “I would renew the discussions that the president just dropped, the idea of missile defense and the Czech Republic and Poland at the beginning of his term as a sort of a gesture to the Russians. I would reengage with the Pols and the Czechs and see if we can’t get missile defense back in those countries. All of those steps would indicate without sending in a single American soldier that the U.S. is serious in standing up to this kind of new form of Russian aggression,” he told a Kentucky radio station. Kerry and Lavrov meet in Geneva to ease Ukraine tensions VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a0NGW3G2-s U.S. Sending Nonlethal Aid to Ukraine Military VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkFkAhQrdgE
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