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President Trump's recent executive order, titled "Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Cost," speaks the language of the principled libertarians, but its beneficiaries are likely to be the thugs.

The order prohibits any agency from issuing any new regulation unless it also repeals two regulations that cost as much as the new one. "Costs" mean the cost of complying with the regulation. The harms that were the reason for the regulation don't count at all.

David Dana and Michael Barsa observe the implications of Trump's order. The Department of Interior created a set of new regulations in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, in which BP spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was the largest marine oil spill in history, and, Dana and Barsa wrote, it cost "nearly $9 billion for lost fisheries and $23 billion for lost tourism, not to mention the catastrophic effects on marine life and birds. Yet under the president's order, the only costs that matter are those to the oil companies. Costs to the public and to the environment are completely ignored." The regulations aren't cheap; the cost to the industry has been estimated at hundreds of millions. But that's peanuts compared to the costs of another spill.

Trump is a big fan of Ayn Rand. Like her fictional hero John Galt in "Atlas Shrugged," he wants to free business from the heavy hand of government. But this is an oddly distorted libertarianism, in which Rand's villains masquerade as her heroes: those who talk most of liberty are the looters and moochers.

Conservatives worry about "regulatory capture": the danger that regulators will abandon the public interest at the behest of regulated industries, keeping prices high and stifling competition. The solution is to get rid of regulation: the state should butt out and let the market operate. There's no doubt that capture has sometimes happened. A notorious example is the Civil Aeronautics Board: after it was abolished in 1985, airline competition intensified and prices plunged.

There is, however, another way in which unworthy special interests can seize control of government. They can work to cripple regulation, so that they can hurt and defraud people. Libertarian rhetoric has turned out to be a rich resource for them.

Barack Obama is actually a better libertarian than Trump. He spent years teaching at the University of Chicago, where the idea of regulatory capture was developed. That had an impact: when he was President, he demanded (following a principle laid down by Ronald Reagan!) that any new regulations survive rigorous cost-benefit analysis. That immunizes regulations from capture, and makes sure that regulators take account of just what worries Trump, the cost to businesses. The overall net value -- benefits minus costs -- of Obama's regulations was upward of $100 billion.

Trump, on the other hand, has replaced cost-benefit analysis with cost analysis. Benefits are ignored. This isn't even business-friendly. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill destroyed hundreds of well-functioning businesses. On the other hand, the businesses that were crushed were small and had nothing like BP's political connections.

There's room for reasonable disagreement with Obama's regulations. The calculation of both costs and benefits inevitably involves some guesswork. The cumulative effect of regulation can hamper businesses. The big difference between Trump and the standard conservatives' critique of Obama is that Trump's executive order holds, as a matter of principle, that benefits don't matter. Consumer fraud, tainted food, pollution, unsafe airplanes and trains, epidemic disease all have to be put up with, if stopping them would increase the costs of regulation.

Trump's new "regulatory reforms" show a persistent pattern. One targets a rule that requires retirement advisers to put clients' interests ahead of their own. Conflicts of interest in retirement advice, for example steering clients into products with higher fees and lower returns, costs American families an estimated $17 billion a year. You can understand why some parts of the financial industry hated the rule. That $17 billion was going into someone's pocket, and that someone finds libertarian rhetoric right handy.

The Libertarian Party, which got more than 4 million votes in the last presidential election, is enthusiastic about the order. It shouldn't be. The order is a deep betrayal of libertarianism, which holds that people should do what they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else.

Freeing businesses to hurt people is not libertarian. The libertarians -- at least, the ones who don't see through Trump -- are being played. If the crippling of the state allows economic behemoths to do whatever they like to others, then what libertarianism licenses, in the garb of liberty, is the creation of a new aristocracy, entitled to hurt the commoners. This is just a different kind of mooching and looting.

It is a new road to serfdom. It reinforces the prejudices of those on the left who repudiate capitalism. The libertarians who embrace it, thinking that they are thereby promoting freedom, are useful idiots, like the idealistic leftists of the 1930s whose hatred of poverty and racism led them to embrace Stalin. John Galt is a sap.

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Trump's 'libertarianism' endangers the public - CNN

New York Times

No Wonder the Republicans Hid the Health Bill New York Times Republican House leaders have spent months dodging questions about how they would replace the Affordable Care Act with a better law, and went so far as to hide the draft of their plan from other lawmakers. No wonder. The bill they released on Monday ... Republicans' Obamacare Replacement Just Got A Powerful EnemyHuffington Post Some congressional Republicans speak out against "Trumpcare"CBS News Conservatives rebel against Trump-backed Republican healthcare planReuters Washington Post -NPR -New York Post -Energy and Commerce Committee all 2,155 news articles »

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No Wonder the Republicans Hid the Health Bill - New York Times

It would have been impossible to imagine a year ago that the Republican Party's leaders would be effectively serving as enablers of Russian interference in this country's political system. Yet, astonishingly, that is the role the Republican Party is playing.

U.S. intelligence services have stated that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the intention of swinging it to one side. Knowing how cautious the intelligence community is in making such judgments, and given the significance of this particular finding, the evidence must be compelling. At the very least, any reasonable person would have to conclude that there is enough evidence to warrant a serious, wide-ranging and open investigation. Polls suggest that a majority of Americans would like to see such an investigation carried out.

It's important at this time of intense political conflict to remain focused on the most critical issue. Whether certain individuals met with Russian officials, and whether those meetings were significant, is secondary and can eventually be sorted out. The most important question concerns Russia's ability to manipulate U.S. elections. That is not a political issue. It is a national security issue.

If the Russian government did interfere in the United States' electoral processes last year, then it has the capacity to do so in every election going forward. This is a powerful and dangerous weapon, more than warships or tanks or bombers. Neither Russia nor any potential adversary has the power to damage the U.S. political system with weapons of war. But by creating doubts about the validity, integrity and reliability of U.S. elections, it can shake that system to its foundations.

The United States has not been the only victim. The argument by at least one former Obama administration official and others that last year's interference was understandable payback for past American policies is undermined by the fact that Russia is also interfering in the coming elections in France and Germany, and it has already interfered in Italy's recent referendum and in numerous other elections across Europe. Russia is deploying this weapon against as many democracies as it can to sap public confidence in democratic institutions.

The democracies are going to have to figure out how to respond. With U.S. congressional elections just 20 months away, it is essential to get a full picture of what the Russians did do and can do here, and soon. The longer the American people remain in the dark about Russian manipulations, the longer they will remain vulnerable to them. The longer Congress fails to inform itself, the longer it will be before it can take steps to meet the threat. Unfortunately, the present administration cannot be counted on to do so on its own.

There's no need to ask what Republicans would be doing if the shoe were on the other foot if the Russians had intervened to help elect the Democratic nominee. They would be demanding a bipartisan select committee of Congress, or a congressionally mandated blue-ribbon panel of experts and senior statesmen with full subpoena powers to look into the matter. They would be insisting that, for reasons of national security alone, it was essential to determine what happened: what the Russians did, how they did it and how they could be prevented from doing it again. If that investigation found that certain American individuals had somehow participated in or facilitated the Russian operation, they would insist that such information be made public and that appropriate legal proceedings begin. And if the Democrats tried to slow-roll the investigations, to block the creation of select committees or outside panels, or to insist that investigations be confined to the intelligence committees whose inquiries and findings could be kept from the public, Republicans would accuse them of a coverup and of exposing the nation to further attacks. And they would be right.

But it is the Republicans who are covering up. The party's current leader, President Donald Trump, questions the intelligence community's findings, motives and integrity. Republican leaders in Congress have opposed the creation of any special investigating committee, either inside or outside Congress. They have insisted that inquiries be conducted by the two intelligence committees. Yet Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the Republican chairman of the committee in the House has indicated that he sees no great urgency to the investigation and has even questioned the seriousness and validity of the accusations. The Republican chairman of the committee in the Senate, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has approached the task grudgingly. The result is that the investigations seem destined to move slowly, produce little information and provide even less to the public. It is hard not to conclude that this is precisely the intent of the Republican Party's leadership, both in the White House and Congress.

This approach is not only damaging to U.S. national security but also puts the Republican Party in an untenable position. When Republicans stand in the way of thorough, open and immediate investigations, they become Russia's accomplice after the fact. This is undoubtedly not their intent. No one in the party wants to help Russia harm the United States and its democratic institutions. But Republicans need to face the fact that by slowing down, limiting or otherwise hampering the fullest possible investigation into what happened, that is what they are doing.

It's time for the party to put national security above partisan interest. Republican leaders need to name a bipartisan select committee or create an outside panel, and they need to do so immediately. They must give that committee the mission and all the necessary means for getting to the bottom of what happened last year. And then they must begin to find ways to defend the nation against this new weapon that threatens to weaken American democracy. The stakes are far too high for politics as usual.

Washington Post

Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post.

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Republicans are becoming Russia's accomplices - Chicago Tribune

Republicans took the first step toward reversing the Federal Communication Commissions internet privacy rules today, with 25 senators introducing legislation that would reverse the rules and forbid the commission from passing anything similar to them in the future.

The privacy rules were introduced last year as an addendum of sorts to the 2015 net neutrality order. That order required the FCC to take over enforcement of privacy protection from the Federal Trade Commission, but the FCC needed to pass clear rules in order to effectively do that.

This is largely about sharing your web browsing habits

The FCCs rules mostly align with the FTCs privacy framework, but they differ in two key ways: the FCC makes internet providers protect your web browsing history, and the FCC has much more leeway to actually enforce its rules.

Of course, neither of those distinctions are things that internet providers like. So theyve been fighting to overturn them.

For the most part, Republicans just want to see the FCC scale back its rules to more closely match the FTCs. At a minimum, thatll mean letting internet providers share your web browsing history so that they can make more ad money.

Its not clear how quickly Republicans intend to move on this, but, one way or another, these privacy rules are probably going down. Republicans can move forward with this legislation, which would require a majority vote in both houses and a signature from the president. Or they could wait around for the FCC to kill the rules on its own commission chairman Ajit Pai has already indicated his plans to do that.

Senator Flake wants the FCC to follow the FTC on privacy

In Congress, Republicans are relying on the Congressional Review Act to reverse the rules. The act allows recently enacted rules to be reviewed and reversed by a new Congress, and its getting thrown around regularly as a way for Republicans to quickly undo many Obama administration actions from last year.

The big question, if the privacy rules are overturned by Congress, is what the FCC will do next. The law would prevent the FCC from passing any rules that are substantially the same as the ones overturned, but its not clear whatll qualify as different enough to clear that bar, especially since the changes Republicans are pushing for arent very dramatic.

At the very least, Republicans have made it clear what they want the FCC to pass. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published earlier this month, Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who authored the resolution introduced today, said he wanted to scrap the current privacy rules in the hope that [the FCC] would follow the FTCs successful sensitivity-based framework.

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Republicans introduce resolution to kill FCC's internet privacy rules - The Verge

WASHINGTON Employers who cheat their workers or endanger their lives now have one less thing to worry about, courtesy of the GOP Congress.

Senate Republicans voted Monday to kill an executive order issued by former President Barack Obama known as the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule. The 49-48 vote, with all Democrats opposed, eliminates a regulation issued late in Obamas presidency that would have made it harder for companies to secure federal contracts if they have a documented history of wage theft or workplace hazards.

Following in the footsteps of House Republicans, GOP senators used whats known as a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act. The obscure procedural maneuver requires only a simply majority, meaning Senate Democrats had no hope of stopping it through a filibuster. In passing the resolution, Republicans not only killed the rule, but also made sure the Labor Department never puts forward a similar rule again, unless Congress tells it to.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign off on the resolution, peeling back yet another regulation on employers.

Its insane, said Debbie Berkowitz, a workplace safety expert at the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for low-wage workers. This is really a vote against working families. Theres been a big misinformation campaign by big business.

Obamas rule would have required companies seeking federal contracts to disclose violations of labor law including minimum wage, overtime, and health and safety statutes over the previous three years. Federal agencies would have been able to consider those violations when doling out contracts.

Backers of the rule, which included Democrats and worker groups, said it would have helped assure that the nations most unscrupulous employers arent rewarded with taxpayer dollars. Republicans and business groups claimed it would have unfairly punished companies without giving them due process. They dubbed it the blacklisting rule.

But even a record of violations wouldnt have precluded a company from receiving contracts. Under the rule, firms bidding for contracts would have had the opportunity to explain mitigating circumstances and steps they took to address the problem. The Obama White House said the goal of the rule was to get companies in compliance with the law.

Studies have shown that many federal contractors routinely break workplace laws, and many continue to receive contracts regardless of violations.

The Labor Department estimated that the rule would have applied toroughly 14,000 contractorseach year. Only a small share of these companies is expected to have reportable violations, and even fewer are expected to have serious, repeated, willful, or pervasive violations to report, the department noted.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a report ahead of Mondays vote that found 66 of the governments 100 largest contractors have broken labor laws.

As Republicans and the Trump White House race to kill regulations, the Labor Department has become a top target. Last week, House Republicans used the Congressional Review Act in an effort to undo a different labor rule, one that would require employers to keep better record of workplace injuries. The Senate has not yet voted on that measure.

Passed in 1996, the Congressional Review Act enablesCongressto dismantle a regulation within 60 days of it being finalized, while also forbidding agencies from rolling out a similar regulation in the future. In general, it could only be used successfully when one party holds both chambers of Congress and takes control of the White House.

Any regulations that Obama did not finalize early enough before he left office could now be wiped out through the Congressional Review Act.Republicans have successfully used the act to repeal more than a dozen regulations in the first few weeks of Trumps tenure. Until this year, the act had only been used successfully once, in 2001, when Republicans blocked a workplace safety rule put forth at the end of the Clinton administration.

The most interesting and troubling thing about this is that it may very well be the ultimate block on modernizing workplace standards, Celine McNicholas, labor counsel for the Economic Policy Institute, recentlytold The Huffington Post.

Excerpt from:
Republicans Just Made It Easier For Companies To Exploit Workers ... - Huffington Post