Kadoka High School

Kadoka, South Dakota

Teacher:  Teresa Shuck

Government As Regulator

By:  Curtis Huffman

11^th grade

      Government regulation helps control businesses, companies, and people.  The regulations help maintain and keep certain things under control. Government regulation is needed to keep order in society.  Without regulations, there would be complete disaster in the world.  Everything would be total chaos.  Government regulation is needed to set laws for people, places, businesses, etc.  The regulations keep things at a controllable pace and a safe manner.  These government regulations will limit certain things while still setting a certain and controllable MAX limit on things.

      There are many legitimate regulations in the world today.  One example of a legitimate regulation is the amount of waste disposal.  This allows for certain companies and businesses to have a set amount of disposal that they can have according to their business size.  Another example of a legitimate regulation is the speed limits on roads.  This forces people to drive safely and properly according to that particular road.  A third legitimate regulation is the regulating of building permits.  These regulations help control the building of things anywhere.  It tells people where and when they can build certain things. 

      On the other hand, there are many unnecessary regulations in the world.  One example of an unnecessary regulation is the regulation of the government having to control census data and computer operations.  If the government would just stick to important regulations, then there wouldn’t be as many unimportant regulations in the world.  Another unnecessary regulation is the regulating of different job salaries.  This should be up to the employer of the company or business to decide and not the government.  A third unnecessary regulation is the business tax amounts given to businesses according to their sales amounts.  This makes larger business pay more than the smaller ones.  The government should just mind their own business and let the storeowners decide how big of business they want, and therefore that will decide how much tax the business has to pay.

      There are many costs attached to government regulations other than dollars budgeted for administration and enforcement.  The cost of people suffering in order to obey the regulations is the biggest one of them all.  Individuals have to suffer just so the regulation can be successful.  An example is people obeying the regulation of having to pay a tax on everything they buy.  These people don't like this regulation, but they just suffer through it and go on with their lives.  The cost of having things being done the way that the government wants and having the world suffer from it makes many people mad and makes the things more difficult for the people can’t understand them.  This is another big cost that comes from the government regulations.  This is a major cost that is attached to government regulations.  Another cost attached is having things done the way that people may not want them done.  This doesn't allow people to live free lives.  They are forced to do and not do many things.  This cost leads to more problems that affect the world.  This can also lead to damages done to the environment and land itself.  An example is the number of pollutants entering the world’s atmosphere because of certain regulations that don't prevent most of them from entering and other toxic materials from not even being regulated.  These are all examples of cost that are attached to government regulations.

      A representative from each state should decide what constitutes over-regulation.  This way each state has the same person deciding on over-regulation.  This would allow that person to make or relate all of his/her decisions in the same matter.  It would eliminate unfairness to all the other regulations and keep them related by certain amounts and regulations.  This would prevent many people from getting their opinions involved as the government does in their regulations.  There would only be one person deciding on the regulation.  This should be a representative from each state.  Deciding what amount of the regulation is safe for everyone and the land also should make over-regulation.  This decision would be made for the safety of each state based on the facts and information the representative knows that the state can handle and manage safely.  This person could make all decisions based equally to his knowledge instead of a bunch of government officials regulating the regulations with all their opinions.

      There are many government regulations in the world today, but they are all needed and help the world turn.  Everything you see or do is regulated to some point.  This makes life very boring and strict.  No one likes to live this kind of life.  There is too much regulation because the government simply thinks they have to set limits and restrictions on everything.  Everything you take from the world is limited to the numbers you can legally take due to restrictions and regulations.  Because of taxes, people have to pay more money other than the cost of the item they bought.  The regulations on amounts of polluting and dumping into the world are good to keep the environment safe.  However, many other regulations are just a waste of time and are simply just a regulation to say that the government regulated it.  Because of all the regulations we have, there are many people that feel like they have no freedom.  This makes for a hard life.  Besides, too many regulations limits people from being themselves.  There are regulations for about everything anyone does in life.  This makes for too much regulation in the world today.  The government should just limit the regulations they make to the more serious things that need regulations in order to keep the people and environment safe to live in.  They should get rid of all the little, tiny regulations and stick to the major ones.  This would create less confusion and less hassle for everyone.  Because of these changes, people could be free and live a happier and better life.            

.

Curtis’s Questions:

Q1.   What is the only way to prevent hijackers from gaining control of an airplane according to the unknown author?

            Answer:  The only way to prevent hijackers from gaining control of an airplane according to the unknown author in section one is to make the cockpit harder and more indestructible.

Q2.      What are the arguments given by lobbyists for the Bells in favor of HR 1542 (Tauzin-Dingell Bill) and arguments given by their opponents against this legislation?
CQ May 5 p 1012

Answer:  The arguments given by lobbyists for the Bells in favor of HR 1542 and the arguments given by their opponents against the legislation are:  The lobbyists in favor of the of the HR 1542 argue that the members need regulatory relief to compete with cable television companies and any other high speed Internet providers.  The opponents against the Hr 1542 argue that the Tauzin and Dingell’s proposal will give the Bills the kind of breaks that Tauzin and Dingell are proposing would chill investment in their smaller competitors, which have struggled to compete. 

Q3.      Why do small-business groups like HR 1831? From the small amount of information presented in your required reading, do you think the legislation is a good idea? Why?
CQ May 19 p. 1161

Answer:  Small-business groups like HR 1831 because it would protect businesses that discard less than 110 gallons of liquid waste or less than 200 pounds of solid, non-hazardous waste at a superfund site.  The measure is aimed at protecting businesses that have not significantly harmed the environment from being sued by large polluters that want to recover some of their government-mandated cleanup costs.  I think that the legislation is a good idea because it protects the small businesses by giving them a superfund site to dump the wastes.  More businesses will eventually follow this legislation and pretty soon all the businesses will have a safe place for dumping the wastes.  This will save the land and limit the pollution.

Q4.      Give an argument in favor of government regulating activities such as roller blading and bungee jumping.
Governing, March 1993 p 23

Answer:  The government should regulate activities such as roller blading and bungee jumping simply because the roller bladers are tearing through public facilities scratching up sidewalks and benches.  Not to mention, disrupting the public people from a peaceful walk in parks and down streets.  The bungee-jumpers are just people that are looking for death.  They go to places like bridges causing traffic jams and other hold ups.  These people disrupt the society and endanger many other people beside themselves.  For these reasons, the government should regulate activities such as roller blading and bungee jumping.  These people that participate in these activities are damaging public grounds and endangering many innocent people in the public.

Q5.      Define a “burden hour.”
CQ ‘April 28 p. 896

Answer:  “Burden hour” is supposed to measure the time it takes to collect data and fill out federal forms, surveys, and reports.   The GAO remark made to a House Government Reform subcommittee on April 24, that the burden hour’s relationship to the real burden is unclear.  The definition of burden is something that prevents something from happening or slows the development of.  So burden hour is the time that something is getting developed or changed.  This is very true according to the remark made by the GAO.  The burden hour is the time that the government is collecting and filling out federal forms, surveys, reports, etc.  This is the true definition of the burden hour pertaining to the government and what they are doing in this time.  

Q6.      Why was Connecticut Senator, Joseph Lieberman, concerned enough to vote against the nomination of Professor John Graham as administrator of the office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the current Bush administration?
CQ May 26 p 1229

Answer:  The Connecticut Senator, Joseph Lieberman, was concerned enough to vote against the nomination of Professor John Graham as administrator of the office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the current Bush administration because, the chairman of the panel will nonetheless provide a high-profile platform for 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut to criticize the Bush administration and further his presumed 2004 presidential aspirations.  He was concerned enough to run because he was expected to raise frequent questions about White House decisions to roll back environmental and workplace safety regulations.  Also because he was likely to ask whether the administration consulted with industry representatives about regulations under development, in violation of a 1993 executive order issued by President Bill Clinton.  He was concerned enough to vote against the nomination of Professor John Graham simply because Lieberman cited Graham’s past criticisms of clean-air and clean-water statutes and questioned whether he would weaken federal health, environmental and safety standards.

Q6a.    Graham is a proponent of “risk analysis.”  How is risk analysis defined on page 992 of the May 5, 2001 issue of Congressional Quarterly Weekly?

Answer:  Graham argues that risk analysis is a valuable tool in setting budget and policy priorities, and that it makes sense to use systematic methods to figure out whether a perceived threat or hazard is real.

Q6b.    Who was the first president to order federal agencies to weigh potential costs and benefits when writing a rule?
CQ May5 2001 p 993

Answer:  Every president since Jimmy Carter has ordered federal agencies to weigh potential costs and benefits when writing a rule.

Q6.      How much would compliance with OSHA’s regulations to limit injuries or disabilities from performing repetitive tasks cost according to an estimate by business groups as reported in the 2000 CQ Almanac?   What was the response of OSHA and Labor Department officials? 
CQAlmanac p 2-111

Answer: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been at work on regulations to limit injuries or disabilities from performing repetitive tasks.  Business groups say the pending rules' breadth and vagueness would drive up their cost of compliance.  Their estimates range from $14 billion to $80 billion a year and would wrongly cut into business productivity and profitability.  OSHA and Labor Department officials, meanwhile, say the rule is intended to be flexible and would not require most companies to act.  While costing employers $4.2 billion annually, they say the rule would also save them $9 billion a year in lost productivity.  This is the argument embraced by labor as well.

Q7.      What was the makeup of the “iron triangle” during the Reagan years and what do environmentalists and consumer activists foresee as its composition in the current Bush administration?
CQ May 5 p 990

Answer:  The makeup of the "iron triangle" during the Reagan years was an unbreakable alliance among Democratic committee chairmen, agency officials and interest groups that worked in concert to achieve common goals, whether it was funding for special projects or protecting specific constituencies.  Environmentalists and consumer activists say they fear the formation of a new triad-composed of industry officials, the White House and GOP committee chairmen that leave them out of the equation.  Many regulatory experts predict that the new dynamic will control the rule-making process in more than 50 federal agencies.  But there's a new level of belief that agency regulations are likely to be more helpful than harmful.

Q8.      Name 5 actions of the Bush administration that have drawn criticism from Environmentalists.
CQ May 5, 2001  p. 994 and 995

Answer:  One action that drew criticism from environmentalists was the signing of legislation (PL 107-5) to kill a Clinton ergonomics rule opposed by many major business groups, who argued that it would cost too much to implement.  The second action was his intention to reverse or revise Clinton regulations, including one to toughen cleanup standards for hard rock mining operations.  The third action was reneging on a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide and by rejecting the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.  The fourth action was reversing a Clinton rule to reduce the levels of arsenic in drinking water.  The fifth action was the upholding of Clinton regulations involving complex medical privacy rules and tougher emission standards for diesel engines.

Q9.      What did the executive order issued by Ronald Reagan in 1981 and still in effect today, require agencies to prove before new regulations were enacted? How did the Democratic House counter in 1986?
CQ May 5, 2001  p. 995

Answer:  Reagan beefed up the agency's oversight power by issuing an executive order in 1981 that required agencies to prove that a regulation's benefits would "outweigh" its costs.  Later, Reagan banned agencies from issuing any regulatory policies that were not approved by OMB at the start of each year.  Democratic chairmen in the House were outraged by Reagan’s actions.  In 1986, the Democratic-controlled House forced a showdown by deleting funds for OMB's regulatory division from the fiscal 1987 budget.  Lawmakers restored the money after OMB director Miller and Wendy Lee Gramm, head of the regulatory affairs office, agreed to make the rule-making process more transparent by disclosing White House documents related to regulatory decisions.

Q10.    On the average, how long does it take to build an airport?  A highway?
CQ May 19, 2001 p 1163

Answer:  Having committed billions of dollars to fund new highway and airport projects across the country, members of Congress are now looking for ways to expedite their construction.  According to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, the average time for a highway construction is 12 years.  He also said that the average time for an airport construction is 15 years, and that's just unacceptable he thought.

Q11.    Discuss the pros and cons of licensing requirements.
Wall Street Journal June 18, 1993

Answer:  Many people are in favor of certain licensing requirements, but on the other side people are against certain licensing requirements.  The people in favor think that it is right to license young businesses to keep them from unreasonable barriers and from starting.  This would let the small business know what it's like to be licensed for starting a business.  It also gives all the other businesses a fair chance.  The people against the licensing requirements think that it's wrong to tax a young business.  It is only keeping it from starting and developing.  The license is just getting them scared so they are likely to quit.  This will eliminate all the small businesses and allow the big businesses to do all the work and business.  This will keep less confusion and business simpler with only having to deal with a few businesses instead of a whole bunch of them.  These are some of the pros and cons of licensing requirements.

Q12.    Discuss the pros and cons of master plans and planning departments.
Taking A Stand On Regulation  pp 80-82

Answer:  Many people have different opinions about master plans and planning departments.  Some people for it say that it allows for the development of newer and better facilities.  It upgrades our buildings to cope with the everyday world around us instead of an old-outdated building that isn't good enough for people to get complete success out of.  By making plans the planning departments can make money and we can get better facilities out of the deal.  It's a win-win situation they think.  However, those people against the master plans and planning departments say that it makes a mess with old buildings and the construction of the new buildings.  This is an inconvenience for all people that are around the area.  The process of building pollutes the world and disturbs the public with all the noise.  These people don't like the tearing up of the ground just to replace a building with a newer, bigger, better one.  These are some of the pros and cons of master plans and planning departments. 

Back