EPA Regulations Strangling America

Billions and billions of dollars in budget money and virtually unlimited power. The epa is doing everything that it can do to wreck our economy by imposing insane standards on companies and coming soon, even individuals. The epa is denying oil companies the ability to drill for oil in our Country, making it impossible for us to become free of foreign oil. The epa is telling us what kind of light bulbs we can use.

Our economy is bordering on collapse and the epa still makes unreal demands of companies.

The worst part about the epa, they don't give a damn what we, the public think or say, and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it...

by Rep. Ted Poe - Human Events

Right now, someone is sitting at a large oak table in the EPA’s marble palace in Washington, D.C., sipping a vanilla latte and dreaming up a new rule to impose. Without fail, the EPA continues to come up with ideas that leave you scratching your head in wonderment because of the questionable science used to justify these regulations. Instead of protecting the environment, these rules dreamed up by the EPA in Washington are destroying American industry and killing job creation, which is just what our economy needs right now. This type of federal meddling is exactly what causes companies to lay off workers, move overseas, and in many cases, fail. The purpose of the Environmental Protection Agency is to protect the environment—not to regulate American industry into nonexistence.

The EPA’s blatant disregard of the fragile state of our economy is alarming. Businesses in the United States already are operating in an environment of uncertainty, which makes investors hesitant to invest in American businesses. The EPA’s efforts to force companies to comply with its expensive (and many times environmentally unnecessary) regulations will inevitably increase the cost for businesses, and accordingly consumers, and destroy job growth. If the EPA continues on its crusade of destruction and over-regulation, manufacturing and energy companies will take their business to friendlier lands overseas, jobs will be destroyed, and the environment will not be any better off.

In the name of saving us from ourselves, the EPA continues to abuse its power. The mother of all mandates is the proposed cap-and-trade regulations. Houston, Tex., is the energy capital of the world, and my area of southeast Texas is home to more energy companies and facilities than almost any other location in the United States. What I hear most often from the businesses that supply the energy that our country demands is that these questionable regulations will significantly increase costs that make doing business in the U.S. too difficult. This type of over-regulation will crush the economy and put thousands of people out of work. What makes the EPA’s proposed regulations most disturbing is that Texas has been successful on its own in ensuring clean air through the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality. Despite Texas’ own progress, the EPA is looking for more to control, arrogantly ignoring the will of the people and the will of Congress.

The American people have rejected the EPA’s cap-and-trade regulations overwhelmingly, and this month, the House of Representatives passed the Energy Tax and Prevention Act that would prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gasses (i.e., carbon dioxide). Of course, this caused the fear-mongerers to scream that we don’t care about the environment. What was left out of their talking points is that this legislation does not prohibit the EPA from regulating those hazardous pollutants that are harmful to public health. We await the Senate's action on this bill.

The Environmental Police Agency’s assault on our economy and state does not stop there. It wants to control what kind of light-bulbs Americans use, how much power the utility companies generate, the “particulate coarse matter”—more commonly known as dust found on farms and ranches, how much water we have in our toilets, and one of the newest ones: What kind of anti-bacterial soap we use to wash our hands. That’s right, the EPA’s overstepping of authority now touches almost every aspect of our lives. So, if you’re a mom who has been using the same soap for years to protect your children from spreading germs, sorry. You need to go to the pharmacy and buy some new “improved” EPA-authorized soap. While you’re there, you should pick up a box of only-Made-in-China compact fluorescent bulbs—because thanks to the EPA—incandescent bulbs will be banned by 2014.

Read the rest at the link above...

CBO: Jobs Created and Saved By Stimulus Cost At Minimum An Average of $228,055 Each

Other than the part-time, temporary census workers, were there actually any people put to work? obama and his thugs kept talking about all the "saved" jobs, which is a bunch of bullshit. If you were paying attention back when this was in the news everyday, there were lots of tales of how the saved jobs numbers didn't quite add up. There were also lots of stories about fictional jobs, even fictional towns and counties.

We will never know where all that money went. I would imagine that many of obama's friends and supporters are financially much better off than before the stimulus stimulated them. There were tons of unions and government entitites that received huge amounts of money.

Even if there were a few jobs created with the stimulus money, do you think any of them actually pay $228,005? I kind of doubt it, unless they were people added to the government payroll...

By Matt Cover - CNSNews

The jobs created and saved by the economic stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed on Feb. 17, 2009 cost at a minimum an average of $228,055 each, according to data released yesterday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

In a report released Wednesday—“Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output from October Through December 2010”—the CBO said it now estimates the stimulus law cost a total of $821 billion, up from CBO’s original estimate that the stimulus would cost $787 billion.

In the same report, the CBO estimated that in the fourth quarter of 2010 there were somewhere between 1.3 million and 3.5 million people who were then employed who would not have been had the stimulus not been enacted. “CBO estimates,” says the report, “that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2010: … Increased the number of people employed by between 1.3 million and 3.5 million.”

This estimate seeks to state the net impact the stimulus had on the number of people employed in the United States as a result of the stimulus, taking into account not only the new jobs believed to be created and the existing jobs believed to be killed by the stimulus, but also the existing jobs that were saved that otherwise would have been lost.

The CBO’s estimate that there were 1.3 million to 3.5 million people employed in the fourth quarter of 2010 who would not have been were it not for the stimulus represents a decline from the 1.4 million to 3.6 million people CBO estimated were employed as a result the stimulus during the third quarter of 2010. (See Table 1 in the report.) In fact, CBO now estimates that the apogee of the stimulus’s net job-creating-and-saving power occurred in the third quarter of 2010 when it believes somewhere between 1.4 million and 3.6 million people had jobs they would not have had except for the stimulus.

Thus, the $821 billion cost of the stimulus divided by the maximum of 3.6 million jobs the CBO believes the stimulus may have saved or created equals an average of $228,055 per job.

At the lower end of the CBO’s top job-creating-and-saving estimate for the stimulus—1.4 million jobs—the jobs would cost an average of $586,428 a piece.

In February 2009, when President Obama signed the stimulus law the national unemployment rate was 8.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2011, the national unemployment rate was 9.0 percent.