We all know that Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney espouses reduced government regulations to free our ‘job creators’ to spur the US economy. So with that in mind I have one quick question for Mr. Romney!
What is the difference between the United States and Pakistan?
Maybe 100 years of fire and factory safety regulations?
From the US Department of Labor:
It all began on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, when fire broke out in one of the crowded and littered workrooms of the Triangle Waist Company, a woman’s shirtwaist manufacturer which occupied the top three floors of the ten stored Ash building near New York’s fashionable Washington Square. Fed by waste containers which were full after the day’s work, the fire spread quickly throughout the factory, panicking the largely female work force. Workers on the eighth and tenth floors were able to escape unharmed, but those on the ninth floor were not so lucky. There they jammed up at illegally locked exits, at doors blocked by machinery and at the elevator shaft with its single car. The fire department responded quickly, but its ladders reached only to the seventh floor. Many workers crowded by the windows and, as the flames became more intense and hopes of escape more feeble, some of them took the only way out and jumped to the street below. A United Press reporter who witnessed the scene told how he learned “a new sound‑‑a more horrible sound than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone sidewalk.” About forty young girls, some of them flaming human torches crashed to the sidewalk and collapsed in broken heaps. None of these survived. Over a hundred more died in the building. According to the reporter, water pumped into the building by the firemen ran red in the gutter.157
The recent factory fires in Pakistan:
Fires at two clothing factories in Pakistan left 283 people dead — many trapped behind locked doors and barred windows — tragedies that highlight workplace perils in a country where many buildings lack basic safety equipment and owners often bribe officials to ignore the violations.
Panicked workers in Karachi had only one way out since the factory’s owner had locked all the other exit doors in response to a recent theft, officials said. Many victims suffocated in the smoke-filled basement.
So when you say you want to take American back, Mr. Romney, do you mean the America of 1911 when the lives of citizens were sacrificed to cost containment in your factories by the free market?
Excellent, Ed. Absolutely excellent. Anti-government GOP legislators and their immensely powerful corporate lobbies have launched an unprecedented deregulation campaign since the ’08 crash putting forth immoral propaganda slogans like “job-killing regulations” and “regulatory burdens.” It is a brazen effort which has taken political advantage of an economic crisis. The more accurate descriptions of their efforts are advancement of “people-killing regulations” and “public burden.” The public should cease their toleration for Corporations That Kill and corporations that pose a “public burden” upon the common good. We should and must demand “regulatory responsibility” of corporations in this society. The people are the authority and ostensibly, the government is the people. The government is the authority over corporations in this society; it should, therefore, operate as such.
Some things to think about:
H.R.10 – Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act: “To amend chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, to provide that major rules of the executive branch shall have no force or effect unless a joint resolution of approval is enacted into law.”
Status: Passed the house, but not the senate.
Reality Check: This bill would slow the delivery of Social Security and Medicare, and delay food regulations and product safety regulations for children. Its purpose is to nullify the ability of regulatory authorities from doing what they are intended to do per the Constitution: REGULATE.
HR 4116: Regulatory Accountability and Economic Freedom Act: “To provide for regulatory accountability and for the revision of economically burdensome regulations and for other purposes.”
Status: Assigned to congressional committee
Reality Check: This bill is a kinder gentler version of H.R. 10 and it has bipartisan support from Centrist Democrats.
S. 474: Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act: “A bill to reform the regulatory process to ensure that small businesses are free to compete and to create jobs, and for other purposes.”
Status: Assigned to congressional committee
Reality Check: This bill doesn’t ease regulations; it obfuscates and complicates the regulatory process – it creates excess baggage for regulatory authorities to the extent that it would obliterate their ability to regulate and to adequately respond to public health and welfare crises. Its favorable impact would be on big business, not small. It complicates government rather than making government more efficient and streamlined – as the GOP is so wont in doing. It also reverses authority between public and private sectors by allowing the private sector to take a regulatory agency to court over a rule it doesn’t like even prior to the rule being completed. It gives more authority to the deregulatory SBA lobby, which is tax funded by the way. And like what is happening with the TPP it allows for a panel of industry insiders to examine proposed regulatory measures before they are made public. OSHA and the EPA already have this rule in place; the practice merely allows industry to write their own rules and it is a practice should be altogether squashed.
S. 1030: Freedom from Restrictive Excessive Executive Demands and Onerous Mandates: “A bill to reform the regulatory process to ensure that small businesses are free to compete and to create jobs, and for other purposes.”
Status: assigned to congressional committee
Reality Check: This amendment is another version of the previous bill, and is a pernicious gimme to the corporate sector. This allows industry to perpetually keep the government in litigation over a regulatory measure before that measure is written in full. It also insists upon agency analysis (in tandem with industry) which looks at “indirect” impacts and potential burdens so vague and indeterminate that (despite the direct benefits of a rule that would necessitate immediate action for public safety) it would delay indefinitely the rule making process. It even allows special interests to “review” rules that are already in place. And bear in mind, had it passed, this nasty little number would have been funding by defunding a program that assists veterans in starting up and maintaining a small business. That makes the bill’s title awfully ironic.
Anytime Conservatives use the word “Freedom” be wary for they have their own special definition for it. It is never in the context of our founding principles, but instead in the context of unleashing all Corporate Hell upon the public.
Okay, sorry Ed. You struck a nerve. I could go on forever, so I’ll just leave you with the following link, might be of interest:
http://www.progressivereform.org/articles/RegBenefits_1109.pdf
p.s. sorry for the typos.
More context for a completely deregulated state:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11563-obama-says-one-thing-in-spotlight-another-behind-closed-doors
2 more bits of context for deregulation.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13506-our-pro-corporate-supreme-court
http://billmoyers.com/2012/09/13/essay-the-one-percent-court/