I don't get too worked up about things. There is very little chance that my preferred policies are implemented anytime soon. This is about what I expect. I'll just keep living my life and hope eventually others come around. If they don't, I'm still going to be just fine.
Musk once again richest person on the planet, overtaking French magnate https://nypost.com/2023/02/28/elon-musk-once-again-is-the-richest-person-on-the-planet/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-...overnment-agencies-1c40da77?mod=hp_opin_pos_1 Biden’s Regulatory Deluge Gridlock in D.C.? Nope, the administrative state is at full throttle. By The Editorial Board Feb. 27, 2023 at 6:55 pm ET If you thought the GOP takeover of the House means gridlock in Washington prevails, think again. Rule by regulation is accelerating and the only check will be the courts. President Biden is leading an unprecedented expansion of the administrative state. In two years his Administration has imposed 517 regulatory actions with some $318 billion in total costs. By the same point in his Administration, President Obama had imposed 740 comparable rules with a cost of $208 billion. Across four years President Trump imposed 1,340 rules at a cost of $64.7 billion. These figures come from the American Action Forum, which says that in 2022 alone federal agencies finalized 264 regulations with economic impact, totting up $117.1 billion in net regulatory costs. Another 311 proposed rules are in the pipeline and would cost $191.2 billion when final. Twenty-three of those rules will cost $1 billion each. Regulatory costs to the economy are now reckoned to be at least $2 trillion, or roughly 8% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2021, according to Wayne Crews at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. If you think of regulation as a tax, Mr. Crews notes, it would be larger than the federal income tax and come out to around $14,684 per family. If the cost of U.S. regulation were a country, it would rank a little behind France’s GDP. Regulators are now in high gear as they write rules to implement the gusher of legislation from the last Democratic Congress. But they are also hard at work imposing new rules by rewriting old statutes to impose policies they can’t get through Congress. A glance at the regulation tracker by the Brookings Institution is bracing. Rule-makings in various stages of the pipeline cover everything from “phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons” (EPA) to “climate-related disclosures for public companies” (SEC), “rule to reduce robocalls” (FCC), “lowering the cost of federal student loan payments” (Education), “menthol cigarette ban” (FDA, HHS) and “sex discrimination in schools” (Education). And much more. Looking at the overall rule count is even worse. The Constitution grants the power to make laws to Congress, not agencies. But in calendar 2021, Mr. Crews notes, agencies issued 3,257 rules, including 105 last-minute Trump rules, while Congress passed 143 laws. Last year they added another 3,168 rules in the Federal Register to go with 247 laws passed by Congress. That’s 13 rules from unelected agencies for every one law from elected legislators. In his first days in office, Mr. Biden revoked Trump Administration executive orders designed to temper the regulatory state. One Trump order to reduce regulation (nicknamed “one in, two out”) required that for every new regulation from the executive branch, two were eliminated. Mr. Biden repealed it. Also axed was a Trump executive order requiring agencies to make “guidance” documents available to taxpayers on public portals. The hope was for a little sunlight on the opaque actions of regulators. In 2019 then California Sen. Kamala Harris co-sponsored the Guidance Out of Darkness Act to require agencies to have portals that would let taxpayers see what they are up to. These days bureaucratic secrecy is in. The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is supposed to review new proposed rules and examine costs and benefits. Even the Obama regulatory shop reined in the bureaucracy on occasion. In the Biden White House it’s largely a rubber stamp. The nearby chart compares the estimated cost of regulations across each year of recent presidencies. Note the explosions in particular under Mr. Obama and especially now under Mr. Biden. The Biden onslaught is moving fast as agencies try to issue rules well before the end of the current Congress so they wouldn’t be subject to the scrutiny of the Congressional Review Act if Republicans control the White House and Congress in 2025. Under the CRA, Congress has 60 legislative days to repeal a rule. Congress could use the power of the purse, but that’s difficult given that Democrats still run the Senate. That means the only real check is through lawsuits and the courts. The Supreme Court’s West Virginia v. EPA decision last year means agencies can’t rewrite rules on “major questions” without a clear command from Congress. That should save the day on several of the worst new rules, such as the Federal Trade Commission’s new ban on non-compete clauses for 30 million workers. But that still leaves considerable running room for rules that cost less than $100 million, and the Biden bureaucracy will test the limits of the law. The burden of rule by regulators will slow economic growth and show up in nearly everything you pay for. Appeared in the February 28, 2023, print edition as 'Biden’s Regulatory Deluge'.
Whoa a Democrat gets elected as president and they issue new regulatory guidance that in some cases replaces the previous Republican administration's rules? This is a stunning development!
Ignoring the benefits of regulations or the costs of (de)regulation can lead to incomplete or misleading assessments of the impact of policies on society and the environment. For example, regulating pollution can lead to cleaner air and water, which can improve public health and reduce healthcare costs. On the other hand, deregulating pollution can lead to increased pollution levels, which can harm public health and increase healthcare costs. Quantifying the costs and benefits of regulations and (de)regulation can be challenging but is an important part of making informed policy decisions. WSJ EB ignoring the benefits of regulations and the significant limitations already imposed on regulations is extremely biased but expected. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IF12058.html https://www.americanprogress.org/article/reckoning-conservatives-bad-faith-cost-benefit-analysis/ For the past 40 years, the process by which the U.S. government issues new agency rules and regulations has been largely premised on demonstrating that the benefits of any regulation “justify” the costs. This is known as cost-benefit analysis (CBA). While CBA may seem like an esoteric process far removed from people’s everyday lives, it has enormous effects on Americans’ health, safety, and financial security. Rules that produce significant net quantifiable benefits are far more likely to be issued, while those that result in significant net quantifiable costs are more likely to be stymied in the executive branch or struck down in court. CBA, therefore, influences the extent to which federal regulators require power plants to limit the amount of toxic pollutants they put into the air; financial advisers to treat their customers fairly; and businesses to provide adequate safety standards for workers and consumers. ...
https://www.youtube.com/live/BzXVTAQy0Pg?feature=share Biden administration is arguing student debt case and they're killing it. Neil gorsch said today thst the SG is one of the brightest people he's ever seen in the courtroom and he appreciates her humor.. @Kim what exactly have you been watching ? The solicitor general is one of the best debaters I've seen. She went toe to toe with the right wingers and shut them down. There's no way the court can give Missouri standing to sue the biden admin. If they strike down the student debt plan then they're compromised. I've been listening to student loan arguments for years and I've never seen justices debate and talk to a solicitor general the way they do with Elizabeth Prelogar the SG. Amazing what a good looking female can do in the courtroom! Judges love female lawyers regardless what they say! Especially a smart one
Eh color me skeptical.. The Conservatives are asking hostile (and absurd) questions. They're doing the usual contorted logic to rationalize contradictory claims (like being ok with Trump declaring the border an emergency and spending FEMA funds without Congressional approval but simultaneously claiming that Biden gets no deference in claiming that covid is an emergency that justifies student loan forgiveness). Basically Republican presidents get maximum deference while Democratic presidents get none and need a gridlocked Congress to sign off on anything they do. This contradiction is further highlighted that Trump also cited the HEROES Act to suspend student loan payments but the Conservatives seem to think that what Biden is doing is so radical that he doesn't deserve the same deference that Trump got on student loans. Biden's lawyer is doing a great job but its hard to win if most of the Conservatives think that they get to veto Democratic policy whenever they want. I mean even Roberts i(the supposed moderate) s asking dumb questions like "how is it fair that someone who got student loans gets forgiveness but someone else who has a bank loan doesn't." This is despite the fact that Congress wrote the HEROES Act to explicitly cover student loans. It was Congress's effing intent to only enable emergency relief for student loans.
Did you hear the part on standing ? She made her best point then. We can't allow any creditor to file a suit agaisnt the government on policy positions. It's ridiculous She's awesome. Started college at 12!!
Barrett was the only one of the conservatives who seemed to really bite on standing. I agree that the plaintiffs have no standing and she made very strong arguments but the clowns in the Supreme Court are really good at creating some absurd reasoning to let this one through. I have very little trust in this court.
Both roberts and Kavanaugh both bite on standing. It's a 25% chance either of them bite and I think ACB 50-60% sides with the liberals.... Lets hope Thomas/Alito leave the court soon... imagine if we had a liberal Supreme Court sigh..
I think Prelogar is very good. Sadly, it doesn't matter too much at the high court, unless your the plaintiff's attorney against Google - ouch. Missouri really doesn't have standing here, but I don't think that will matter with some Justices. The Biden admin most likely overstepped the intent and text of the law too in this case, so both sides are wrong. You don't even need to go into non-delegation or major questions doctrine (which was BS the one time used) to overturn the admin's action. You can just use clear textual interpretation. W. Virginia v. EPA was a terrible decision from a clear reading of the text. SCOTUS could have gone straight non-delegation, which makes more logical sense, but would have arguably voided the EPA and then snowballed to voiding like the SEC, FEC, everything, and not even the most conservative Justices want that....well, not all of the most conservative, lol. Anyhow, major doctrines is just picking and choosing what justices like without a foundational logic that can clearly define major. Congress wrote "best systems" and SCOTUS still thought that wasn't clear enough. So yeah, I don't have much hope that SCOTUS will uphold the student debt program. I don't really have a dog in the fight either. It is most likely technically an overstep of administrative power. It's also an overstep by Missouri to sue. We'll see.
Trying to use the Heroes acts as a vehicle for forgiving $400 billion in federal student loans seems like some pretty thin gruel to me. It doesn't seem to be that persuasive of an argument. Federal student loan holders haven't had to pay anything in (soon to be) over three years. Many haven't had their jobs impacted at all by the pandemic, and if they did, the current labor market is fantastic and has been for awhile and they have received a tremendous economic benefit on interest pauses/payment pauses the last three year. The nexus between the pandemic and "they need this $10,000.00 forgiveness" seems attenuated at best. The notion, "we need to do this because of the pandemic" is weak - something needs to be done and many prominent Democrats have been calling for something to be done for a long time but it doesn't really have anything to do with the pandemic. Biden/Warren/others weren't arguing student loan forgiveness was necessary because of the pandemic during the 2020 campaign iirc. It was just something they wanted to do and are now using the pandemic as a pretext... and it doesn't appear to be going over that well. I was under the impression the Secretary of Education had the authority to forgive federal student loans via some authority that gave him that power simply as the Secretary of Education, but I guess not.
Cmon they have absolutely no effin standing. This is bs how the case is even brought up. I'm sure the Supreme Court would allow a blue state to randomly challenge a republican deregulation policy right. It's effin bullshit and the court is corrupt. She kicked ass no matter what side you're on. All the judges have massive respect for her and she's doing the best she can. Biden has kept a impartial attorney General who pisses off lefties and Republicans. He's stacked the court with great public defenders who will reshape the judical branch for decades. Kamala harris made history today by being **THE FIRST VP EVER** to confirm a judge. Biden is stacking the judical branch and reshaping it in ways I don't think people recognize. He's on pace to confirm 300 judges by next year which is 1/3 of all judges.
I was listening to a bit of the arguments about the student loan and it does seem like a majority would rule against the Biden Admin except for the standing issue. I think that will be the crux of it.
If they kick these cases out due to standing issues I imagine they will find some entity somewhere who has standing and kill this program.
