Last night I did a piece on the latest New York Times/CBS News poll which showed that the American people hate Congress more than ever, don’t like the Republicans or their presidential candidates, and don’t like the Republicans’ proposed solutions for the jobs crisis. But there was one Republican idea that polled fairly well. According to the New York Times, “half of the public favors reducing or repealing regulations on businesses in the United States.” Nothing else the Republicans are selling can garner 50% support, so it’s not too surprising that they are hitting the “regulations” meme pretty hard. Except, as Steve Benen points out, regulations aren’t strangling the economy and President Obama has introduced fewer new regulations at this point in his presidency than George W. Bush had at this point in his.
The notion that regulations are hurting the economy has already been so thoroughly debunked, it’s safe to conclude that anyone who repeats it is not to be trusted. But there’s another angle to the talking point that’s equally important: Obama hasn’t approved massive new regulations.
What Mr. Benen doesn’t mention is that the Republican presidential candidates aren’t just complaining about regulations. They’re almost universally calling for the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency. Some are adding the Department of Energy and/or the Department of the Interior to the chopping block. I don’t know how well those ideas poll, but I can’t imagine the country has developed a thirst for destroying the environment and eliminating wilderness spaces.
In any case, since the only idea the Republicans have that has any support at all is to reduce regulations on businesses, we can expect them to continue to flog that horse.
