regulation

"Independent agencies" occupy an odd corner of American government. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Labor Relations Board, Federal Communications Commission, and others are nominally "independent" of the president's control—usually thanks to limits on the president's power to fire the agencies' leaders—and thus enjoy seemingly unlimited discretion to regulate American industry.

Last week, a federal judge in Washington issued a truly extraordinary opinion. Judge Janice Rogers Brown, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, went out of her way to challenge one of bedrock achievements of the 20th Century liberal legal establishment: the de-emphasis of economic rights, relative to other "fundamental rights," as a matter of constitutional law. Judge Brown's opinion already has sparked controversy, and it deserves closer scrutiny.

Bloomberg recently ran a great series on the challenges to expanding America's manufacturing sector that's worth reading in light of the president's State of the Union rhetoric on jobs. It opens with this distressing anecdote:

There are a number of pricey regulations that have received attention of late: net neutrality, new ozone standards, countless regulations stemming from the passage of the Dodd-Frank bill. These rules typically garner a mention in the Wall Street Journal, a formal Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) review, and, in some cases, a lengthy Regulatory Impact Analysis.

CNN: "Obama, Dems drop millionaire surtax to pay for payroll tax cut"

Wall Street Journal: "Regulation for Dummies"

Roll Call: "Occupy, Liberals Can’t Get Together"

An op-ed in one of President Obama’s hometown papers, the Chicago Sun-Times, highlights the 4,257 new regulations that his administration currently has in the works (219 of which will cost at least $100 million apiece, annually). The op-ed draws particular attention to one specific regulatory effort: the Environmental Protection Agency’s backdoor attempt to impose cap and trade.

Politico: "Rick Perry panic fires up the left"

Zero Hedge: "How The Economy Quietly Entered A Recession On Friday, And Why The GDP Predicts A Sub-Zero Nonfarm Payroll Number"

In the Washington Post, Camden Fine, president and chief executive of the Independent Community Bankers of America, writes, “I was astounded this month when the Federal Reserve announced its intention to keep interest rates at zero percent for at least the next two years. I kept staring at that number, 2013, assuming that it was a mistake.”  He continues, “In my view, the Fed’s policy is nothing more than a backdoor bailout for the Wall Street mega-banks and investment houses; it amounts to the back of the hand for the community banks of this country.”

When the Court hears 80 or so cases in a year, not all of them will be interesting.  In fact, some of them will be dreadfully boring.  Those tend to be known as "telecommunications cases."  (The occasional "fleeting expletive" or "wardrobe malfunction" case notwithstanding.)

I wrote a five-part series on Texas's breathtaking economic achievements earlier this year so this didn't come as a surprise to me, but a lot of people will probably find this stunning: