Journal-Times
July 21, 2010 — By Ronnie Ellis, CNHI
FRANKFORT - With the passage of financial reform this week, President Barack Obama has delivered on his major campaign promises: financial stimulus, health care and financial reform.
Yet his poll numbers are at their lowest yet — his approval and disapproval ratings were both at 44 percent when he awoke Friday. There have been comparisons by his critics with Jimmy Carter, who was unable to work with Congress to enact his proposals. But the reality of the first part of Obama’s first term is in some ways more consistent with Ronald Reagan’s experience. Both moved quickly in their first terms to pass major legislation while their popularity and power were at their greatest.
So why is he doing so poorly in public opinion polls? It’s the economy, stupid. When the economy is bad, the economy is the only issue. The BP debacle in the Gulf Coast doesn’t help either, although there isn’t much Obama can do bout it.
People are fearful and they’re frustrated. They seem to think government not only can’t solve their problems but can’t even get out of its own way as CBS’ Bob Shieffer put it. Presidents often get too much blame when things go badly and too much credit when they go well. But that’s no different for Obama than for any president. Reagan saw his popularity drop but rebound. Carter’s never did. Just like Reagan and Bill Clinton, Obama faces losses in Congress in the first mid-term elections of his presidency. But Reagan and Clinton recovered. Obama’s hopes for recovery by 2012 rest on what happens between now and then with the economy.
In the meantime Republicans drool about November. Nowhere is that more on display than in Kentucky where Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is running against deficits and debt and Obama’s financial stimulus — and subtly against Obama himself who is even more unpopular in Kentucky than he is nationally.
For Obama and Democrats, defending the stimulus isn’t easy. People have forgotten the doomsday predictions of worldwide economic collapse by virtually every economist — on the left and on the right — in October of 2008. New Hampshire’s Republican Sen. Judd Gregg recently said Obama’s financial polices avoided a much worse economic disaster than the public will ever fully understand. But that’s not the way it looks to most people.
Saved jobs aren’t as easy to point to or prove as new ones, especially when the unemployment rate hovers at 10 percent. For many voters, government is more involved in the economy than it should be and still the economy lags badly, people go without work and those who have jobs worry they can’t keep them. That’s not likely to change by November and it looks like a Republican year. Obama has to hope it changes by 2012.
Jim Bunning is at it again. He said New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was smart to die this year before the possible return of the estate tax next January. Bunning, of course, has credibility on both baseball and financial planning. He’s a Hall of Fame pitcher, has an economics degree, and worked after baseball as an investment broker. He is also no fan of the Yankees, as he made clear to me — a lifelong Yankee fan — in a conversation several years ago.
Of course we Yankee fans see the timing of Steinbrenner’s passing differently. We aren’t surprised Steinbrenner held on until his Yankees won another World Series and sat in first place at the All-Star break.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.
REINS: A major step to restore constitutional balance in government
By U.S. Congressman Geoff Davis
For too long, Congress has delegated an unwarranted level of authority to unelected bureaucrats in the Executive Branch for major decisions that affect you and your family.
Members of Congress vote on legislation, but the devil is always in the details. The details of the legislation, which will directly impact you, are often left for unelected government employees to determine. This is an all too common occurrence that lets Congress off the hook for major federal regulations that impact your everyday life.
Last year, a constituent came to me with an idea to improve the transparency of and accountability for the thousands of new Executive Branch rules and regulations. As a result, I introduced H.R. 3765, the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act—also known as the REINS Act.
The REINS Act, would require that Congress must affirmatively approve any new major rule proposed by a federal agency, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, before it can be enforced on the American people. By statutory definition, a major rule has an annual economic impact of at least $100 million or major increases in costs or prices for consumers.
Take for example, the new trillion-dollar health care law. Members of Congress voted on a 2,000 page bill that, according to Congressional Research Service estimates, has more than forty provisions that require, permit or contemplate federal rulemaking.
These regulatory processes will fill in major holes within the legislation. Just as one example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is given the power to determine what type of health insurance the government will deem “acceptable” for you and your family.
On Wednesday, June 21st, President Barack Obama will sign the financial regulatory legislation into law. The legislation creates multiple new bureaucracies and empowers ten regulatory agencies to write the hundreds of added rules and regulations.
The Wall Street Journal further emphasizes the point that the rule making decisions will be left to unelected government staff members: “Rather than the bill itself, it will be this process—accompanied by a lobbying blitz from banks—that will determine the precise contours of this new landscape, how strict the new regulations will be and whether they succeed in their purpose. The decisions will be made by officials from new agencies, obscure agencies and, in some cases, agencies like the Federal Reserve that faced criticism in the run-up to the crisis.”
The future of environmental policy is yet another critical area in which the REINS Act could provide meaningful accountability and transparency. After Speaker Pelosi forced the job-killing Cap and Trade bill through the House, the legislation was held up in the Senate. In December 2009, however, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took matters into their own hands and began moving to regulate greenhouse gas emissions on its own without approval from Congress. Despite the absence of a final decision from Congress, unelected bureaucrats have already finalized regulations that represent a generational shift in environmental policy. These regulations and related proposals threaten families and businesses with high energy prices that will be a permanent burden to growth, recovery, and prosperity.
This is not to say all regulation is bad, but rather that regulation must flow from a constitutionally balanced government where the legislative power remains in a Congress accountable to the American people.
Increasing congressional accountability for federal regulations will create rules that take the impact on American businesses and families into consideration by ensuring their voice is heard in the regulatory process through their Representative. REINS will improve the way Washington does business and restore checks and balances in our government.
