Obama's aggressive drive to regulate you more

The surprising reason behind Obama's aggressive drive to regulate you more

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BY ANDREW MALCOLM

11/30/2015 08:08 AM 

Clearly, Americans are incapable of living their everyday lives without explicit written guidance from Washington bureaucrats.

Thankfully, a caring Barack Obama and his minions are working feverishly these days to guide us on their proper path by writing and imposing a record number of costly regulations before his reign ends in 416 days. That's a pretty long time, 10,008 hours, in fact.

You and your children will be feeling these rules -- and paying for them -- for decades to come.

As is the wont of the self-described most transparent administration in history, Obama issued a massive, record-setting list of upcoming rules late last week in the shadow of a national holiday.

You may have missed the latest list of 2,000 aggressive new rules, including 144 that will cost at least $100 million each.

You were supposed to miss the list, the Unified Agenda. It's set by law, but not the surreptitious timing. There'll be hundreds more on another list in six months. Rules on employers, banks, restaurants, importers. You name it.

But our vigilant colleagues on IBD's Editorial Board exposed the sneak attack here.

Then, the Democrat and the Mrs. climbed aboard a 747 again to create a six-hour, jumbo-jet carbon footprint to Paris to talk about lethal carbon footprints causing global warming. Not counting the squadron of associated aircraft that accompany a POTUS. And those used by other world leaders gathering to blab.

Global warming is a varsity-level concern in Obama's ideological mind that's easily the worst national security threat facing the United States today.

Of course, you can guess what will ooze from this week's Paris meeting: More rules for you.

You may hear minor grumbling about Obama's vast volume of new rules in coming days. What you won't likely see is a clear explanation of the cause. Yes, Obama is continuing his unprecedented executive over-reach trying to transform American life.

But also Congress is enabling his path to dictate so many new rules. In recent decades, as the Senate and House of Representatives have grown more partisan, legislative language coming off of Capitol Hill has grown increasingly vague.

Call it careless or lazy, inadvertent or stupid, the result is a self-imposed diminution of power within one of the three separate branches of government. More and more discretion is left to bureaucrats to fill in the gaps with rules imposing their own unregulated interpretations.

Guess which way the seven years of Obama steering has gone. The EPA would regulate private puddles. Even Michelle Obama's got in the act with her school lunch and restaurant menu content requirements 

Leveraging the behavior of massive institutions in a democracy is very difficult. On purpose for stability's sake. Even when control of Congress changes parties, institutional inertia is powerful. Same for altering the direction of accumulating liberal or conservative court decisions.

Change requires, well, changing members through election and retirement. Opinion polls show approval of Congress now nearing historic lows in single digits.

But wait! Statistics show that in congressional elections every two years, voters routinely reelect at least 90% of Senate and House incumbents -- nine out of ten. The lesson that members would draw from that success is that constantly-whining voters are -- wait for it -- just as hypocritical as they complain politicians are.

And those members would be correct.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/113015-782872-unified-agenda-reveals-broad-reach-of-obama-regs.htm#ixzz3t4l1R3BR
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