President Joe Biden’s administration — in an attempt to improve Biden’s ratings — touted their economic policies last week. This has become known as Bidenomics. “President Biden and Vice President Harris came into office determined to rebuild our economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down—and that strategy is working,” as announced on www.WhiteHouse.gov.
I agree; it’s working. It’s just not helping middle or lower-class America.
One problem with all levels of government — from cities and counties to states and the federal government — is its propensity to make rules. These regulations govern our lives. Many are necessary and required to help society function. Many protect us. All of them have costs.
Over-regulation is a known problem of government bureaucracy. Biden has officially become the “King” of burdensome regulations with Barack Obama the crowned prince.
Casey Mulligan, University of Chicago professor and former chief economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, just released a report which compares the financial impact of the last three presidential administrations — Obama, Trump and Biden.
Milligan’s report shows that regulations from the Biden administration during his first two years in office have added $10,000 worth of extra costs to each U.S. household. Guess which class this affects most? Hint: It’s not the rich.
Mulligan’s report says that as of the end of 2022, the Biden administration has added $617 billion per year of regulations to our economy. This rate of regulation cost surpasses that of the Obama administration’s first two years in office.
The report warns that if the rate of rulemaking and regulatory costs accelerates as it did during Obama’s eight years in office, ”The result after eight years [under Biden] would be a cumulative $7 trillion, which is almost $60,000 per household.”
Regulations have become so burdensome that 131 manufacturing organizations — representing over 100,000 businesses — recently sent a letter to the White House pleading with the Biden administration to reign in the growth of new regulations.
“We’ve never seen this level before in any administration,” President and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers Jay Timmons said. “We want to call attention to the barrage of regulations that manufacturers are facing right now.”
These regulations add costs to the production of everything we purchase. They are not simply absorbed by manufacturing. They are passed on to the consumer. This puts American-made products at a disadvantage to China and other foreign manufacturers.
“Regulations create tremendous uncertainty, which can stall or even prevent manufacturers from growing their workforce, purchasing equipment, conducting research and development and investing in their communities,” the letter read. “This puts manufacturers in the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage with countries such as China, threatening America’s global leadership.”
According to the National Association of Manufacturers’ Q2 2023 Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, which was just released last month, “The cost of complying with regulations can be enormous, particularly when it comes to regulations that impact hiring and retention. The most current data on the cost of regulations shows that the average U.S. company paid $9,991 per employee per year to comply with federal regulations, but the average manufacturer in the United States pays nearly double that amount: $19,564 per employee per year. Small manufacturers face an even higher and disproportionate regulatory cost of $34,671 per employee per year, which is more than three times the cost to the average U.S. company.”
Trump, a businessman, with a different perspective, took a different approach.
“President Trump showed that regulatory costs can be subtracted rather than perpetually added,” Mulligan’s report states. “Four years of President Trump reduced regulatory costs by about $11,000 per household. Eight years would have saved a total of more than $21,000, which is a gap of $61,000 to $80,000 from the Biden trajectory.”
Yes, Bidenomics is working. It’s working to increase inflation on every American with burdensome regulations.
