What The House GOP Cares About (Not Jobs)

by Stuart Shapiro

Last week the House passed the Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act freezing regulations.  They also passed a bill stopping a particular regulation by the Department of Labor that would address child labor on farms.  All in the name of job creation. But would these bills (going nowhere in the Senate) create jobs?

…economists told The Huffington Post that regulation has had a minimal impact on the unemployment rate. Their claim is backed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that just under 16,000 jobs, or 0.4 percent, were lost because of “government regulations/intervention.”

“It’s just hard to believe that the paperwork requirements to starting a business represent a major impediment to starting businesses right now,” Burtless said. “That’s not why we had lots more business creation in the late ’90s.”

Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, warned that any potential job creation from environmental deregulation could be offset by health concerns.

So what’s the point of these bills?  Former Republican Representative Sherwood Boehlert nails it.

…this bill is not drafted to deal with any practical concern anyway; it’s designed to codify an ideological fantasy. Bills like this make it harder, not easier to get down to the real work of improving the regulatory system.

Jobs are irrelevant to the agenda of the House GOP.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.