Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, if Washington is going to force new regulations on the job creators of this country, I think America needs to know the cost of those regulations. That is why I rise today to discuss an important amendment, an amendment I am offering to the underlying China currency bill. It is Barrasso amendment No. 671. This amendment, which is a bipartisan amendment--it is cosponsored by Senator Manchin and Senator Blunt--will force the U.S. Government to look before it leaps when it comes to issuing job-crushing regulations.
Simply put, the administration would be required to do a comprehensive and transparent jobs-impact analysis--a jobs-impact analysis--before issuing any job-crushing regulations.
Job creation in this country has almost come to a halt. The Labor Department reported that zero jobs were created in August. The economic recovery that was promised by the administration failed to materialize. Unemployment remains at 9.1 percent. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in China is 4.1 percent. Our economy is stagnant. China's economy is growing. It has been this way since President Obama took office.
The President blames the American people by saying the country has grown soft. In September, he stated in a TV interview in Florida:
The way I think about it is, you know, this is a great, great country that has gotten a little soft and, you know, we didn't have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track.
Yet, despite the repeated assurances of improvement, President Obama's own economic policies have failed. The only people who have gained from these policies live in countries overseas. We see it in China. These are people who are benefiting from American companies moving operations outside the United States. Why? Well, it is to escape Washington's redtape.
The President's stimulus plan failed to produce the 3.5 million jobs the President had promised. His so-called green jobs initiative gave us more red ink but never came close to the 5 million new jobs he predicted.
All the while, the Washington bureaucracy that he controls has continued to churn out extensive as well as expansive new regulations that amount to an assault on domestic private sector job creation. The facts are inescapable. Since President Obama took office, America has lost approximately 2.3 million jobs. We have been in an economic crisis, a crisis that extends to America's confidence in the President, confidence in this President to do anything that will change the current course.
What the American people want is leadership, and they have rejected the President's insistence that the only way forward is through more spending and more Washington redtape on those in this country who create jobs.
In September, the President addressed a joint session of Congress. He actually said he wanted to eliminate regulations, regulations he said put an unnecessary burden on businesses at a time, he said, they can least afford it. Well, we heard this same message from the White House time and time again. The rhetoric coming out of this White House simply has not matched the reality.
In fact, Washington continues to roll out redtape each and every day. The redtape makes it harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs while making it easier to create jobs in foreign countries such as China. The President said his administration has identified over 500 reforms to our regulatory system, he said, that would save billions of dollars the next few years.
Well, I appreciate that the White House may have identified wasteful regulations, but it will not help our economy unless the White House repeals those wasteful regulations. The President's jobs plan does nothing to fix the regulatory burdens faced by America's job creators. His jobs plan actually adds to the burden on job creators in this country.
The President has tried to justify this increasing avalanche of redtape. He said he does not want to choose between jobs and safety. Well, in today's regulatory climate, the choice is a false one. Washington's wasteful regulations are not keeping Americans safe from dangerous jobs. The American people cannot find jobs because no one is safe from the regulations coming out of Washington.
For every step our economy tries to take forward, Washington regulations continue to stand in the way. The expansion of the Federal bureaucracy is suffocating the private sector economy. Federal agency funding has increased 16 percent over the past 3 years, while our economy has only grown 5 percent over the same 3 years.
The regulatory burden is literally growing three times faster than our own economy. This massive increase in Washington's power has only made the U.S. economy worse and China's better. Americans know regulating our economy makes it harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs. The combined cost of new regulations being proposed by the Obama administration in July and August alone was $17.7 billion. Much of this cost was borne by Americans working in red, white, and blue jobs.
Those who try to justify these policies claim they will help us create green jobs at some unknown time in the future. Our economy, our job market, is not a seesaw. Pushing one part down does not make the other side pop up. This administration's out-of-control regulations scheme is dragging down large portions of our economy.
Now the President has promised to stop this kind of overreach. President Obama issued an Executive order at the start of this year. Way back in the beginning of 2011 he said he wanted to do that, to slow down Washington's regulations.
Let's see how effective the President has been with his Executive order. Well, it has failed. In the month the President issued his Executive order, way back in the beginning of 2011, all of those months ago, hundreds of new rules and regulations have been either enacted or proposed. For every day that goes by, America's job creators face at least one new Washington rule to follow.
When the President announced his Executive order, he said he wanted to promote predictability and reduce uncertainty. These are very laudable goals, but a new rule every day does nothing to promote predictability and is the very definition of uncertainty. The main source of uncertainty in the economy right now is Washington regulations.
To make things worse, the people most victimized by this uncertainty are the very people the President claims he wants to help. The President said last year that when it comes to job creation, he wants to ``start where most new jobs do, with small businesses.''
Well, the sentiment is right, but, again, what has he done about it? According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, businesses with fewer than 20 employees, well, those businesses incur regulatory costs that are 42 percent higher than larger businesses which have up to 500 employees. These figures do not include the avalanche of new regulations coming down the road.
Since January 1 of this year, over 50,000 pages of regulations have been added to the Federal Register. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has said the President's new health care law alone will produce 30,000 pages of new health care regulations. At whom are many of those aimed? Well, it is these same small employers the President claims to want to help.
The President said he will keep trying every new idea that works, and he will listen to every good proposal no matter which party, he said, comes up with it. Well, I have a pretty simple idea. If the President wants to know which proposals will work to create jobs, maybe he should require his regulatory agencies to tell him how their own actions will affect the job market.
The amendment I am offering is going to do just that. It is a bipartisan amendment. It is based on a bill that I have introduced called the Employment Impact Act. This amendment will force every regulatory agency to prepare what is called a jobs impact statement--a jobs impact statement--for every new rule proposed.
The impact statement must include a detailed assessment of the jobs that would be lost or even gained or sent overseas upon enactment of a rule coming out of Washington. Agencies would be required to consider whether new rules would have a bad impact on our job market in general. This job impact statement would also require an analysis of any alternative plans that might actually be better for our economy.
The amendment requires regulatory agencies to examine and report on how new rules might interact with other proposals that are also coming down the road. The problem with Washington regulations is not only that they are too sweeping, but there are also too many. It makes no sense to look at any one individual rule or regulation in a vacuum and then enacting hundreds of them without identifying and understanding their cumulative impact and effect.
The cumulative effect of those regulations is going to spell death by a thousand cuts for hard-working Americans who are trying to work, trying to support their families. In keeping with the principles of transparency that President Obama regularly proclaims is a priority for him, this bill, this amendment, will require every jobs impact statement prepared by a Federal agency to be made available to the
public. The American people deserve to know--have a right to know--what their government is actually doing.
Federal agencies in Washington need to learn to think, to think about the American people before they act. Requiring statements from these agencies on what their regulations will do is nothing new. For 40 years the Federal Government has required an analysis of how Federal regulations will impact America's environment. They have to file what are called environmental impact statements. What I am asking for is simply a jobs impact statement.
Past generations of legislators rightly recognized the importance of America's land, air, and water. It is equally important that we recognize the importance of America's working families as well. America's greatest natural resource is the American people. We are talking about people who want to work, who are willing to work, who are looking for work, and yet cannot find a job.
This amendment, the Barrasso amendment, will force Washington bureaucrats to realize Americans are much more interested in growing our Nation's economy than they are in growing China's economy.
I urge a vote and adoption of this amendment.
I yield the floor.
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