tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4223398383609158624.post8988490581272698602..comments2024-02-24T00:37:43.087-05:00Comments on The Other McCain: The politics of assertionRobert Stacy McCainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084541621503669804noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4223398383609158624.post-71710496291188322772009-02-26T17:37:00.000-05:002009-02-26T17:37:00.000-05:00The regulation charge is a knee slapper. A couple...The regulation charge is a knee slapper. A couple of economists at GMU - names and titles unavailable, sorry - did a study of previous presidential administrations regulatory performance. They did not try to judge the effectiveness of regulations; they ranked each 4 year administration by number of pages of regulations added to the Federal Registry and the additions to budget and staff in the key regulatory agencies of the federal government. Bush II (I think the second 4 years was extrapolated) achieved 2 of the 4 most regulatory intense administrations in the last 50 years (sorry, can't remember the President during the other 2 of the top 4). The use of these proxies for measuring "regulatory density" is that it presumes, rightly I think, that the Federal Registry pages are not empty and that the new employees with funds to wield are not idling away their work days reading WaPo. If the "regulatory laxity" argument is proffered, the accuser must be able to defend the assertion with specifics, since the macro context highlighted in the study shows the contrary.johnsalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01428743912818114522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4223398383609158624.post-42103850449527183812009-02-25T18:26:00.000-05:002009-02-25T18:26:00.000-05:00There was one regulation gutted: the one that said...There was one regulation gutted: the one that said that investment banks should only be leveraged 20 to 1. That was a mistake.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com