Chamber of Commerce
Commentary
The Chamber of Commerce Does Not Care About Unemployment
Cry Wolf Quotes
The Act broadly authorizes the Secretary to grab any police powers in the occupational health and safety fields that are now held by states. State safety officials could be forced to report directly to the federal Secretary when he says so.
There is definitely a major disconnect between our leaders in Trenton and the people who pay taxes and employ residents. Legislators and the governor seem to think our residents and employers have deep pockets and unlimited resources to fund their bloated bureaucracy, when that is far from the case. This madness has to end.
All of us pay for OSHA’s failures. We pay as consumers when the goods we buy cost more in the marketplace. We pay as taxpayers with more and more whittled from our paychecks to fund an agency that is heavy on expenses but lean on results.
Exercising such authority, of course, would require an enormous federal policing force, perhaps in the thousands. Already, employers, in their long-standing voluntary programs to make their plants safer, scratch hard for qualified safety experts. Labor Secretary W. Willard Wirtz blandly explained to Congressmen that getting people would be no drawback. He said he could staff his safety policing team with the hard-core unemployed. These presumably would then show up as federal ‘inspectors’ armed with power of life or death over your business.
Backgrounders & Briefs
Industry Repeats Itself on Financial Reform
As the nation approaches the first anniversary of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, opponents are claiming that the new measure is extraordinarily damaging, especially to Main Street. But industry’s alarmist rhetoric bears striking resemblance to the last time it faced sweeping new safeguards: during the New Deal reforms. The parallels between the language used both then and now are detailed in a report released today by Public Citizen and the Cry Wolf Project.
Resources
U.S. Chamber Watch is a watchdog organization focused on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's agenda and influence.
