The Cry Wolf Quote Bank chronicles the false predictions and hyperbole by opponents of these laws and protections. While the issues and specific policies change over time, the rhetoric and themes remained the same. You can search the Quote Bank for what opponents said to prevent these laws from passing. Using the drop down menus on the right their statements by issue, by specific law, by who said it and by the core themes they evoke. Elsewhere on the site, you can find articles, studies, and other material that debunks their claims.
All too often such well-intended Federal programs simply fuel the flames of spiraling health care cost inflation, diffuse the concentration of limited Federal dollars on the truly medically needy who must rely on Government entitlements for any medical care, and exacerbate the rising uncontrollable element in the Federal deficit which we must get under control if we are going to put people back to work—which is the real objective that would meet the problem addressed by this committee.
Unemployment always lags behind the business cycle and is highest when recovery has begun. In such periods, when pessimism is pervasive, costly proposals are often advanced, such as public programs to create jobs, mortgage subsidies, and health insurance for the unemployed. These proposals always prove to be unnecessary since they never get fully started until recovery is going strong. Furthermore, such programs would increase the federal deficit at a time when it needs to be reduced. This would mean applying the wrong solutions, which would increase the deficit, abort the recovery, reinflate the economy and continue unacceptable high levels of employment.
Governments at all levels are already financially strapped. A national program must not be self-defeating, i.e., it should not so increase the deficit structure as to impede economic recovery. The country’s main objective must remain a return to a healthy economic condition. This is the main problem facing the unemployed.
All told, some 16 million or more jobs will be needed in the next seven years. The statistics on the recovery from the 1974 recession indicate that such job creation is achievable. The major problem is to accomplish this goal through sound economic recovery and growth without increasing inflation or discouraging hiring by adding to labor costs.
[The] procedures required are too costly and non-productive to industry, making New Jersey a less competitive location for manufacturing.
Our feeling was and still is that there is no scientific reason for not relaxing regulations. [Easing lead rules would] save billions of dollars in the balance of payments and also of million of barrels of crude oil a year.
Additional money spent on secondary cleanup standards is not going to make that much difference in air quality, but it will hurt the American steel industry….In short, if it did not have to meet environmental requirements, the steel industry would have the capital to increase its annual shipments from 92 million tons in 1981 to 105 million tons in 1990….The need to meet future environmental requirements will reduce this expansion to 96 million tons.
[The proposed OSHA right-to-know regulation will be] an enormously expensive and unnecessarily burdensome regulation.
[The right-to-know law is] a sop to a small group of people that I would call ‘overreactors’ I know it’s going to cost a business a helluva lot of money.
It would require us to mail out forms and get information on 450 or more chemicals from 7,500 firms. We think that would require another 15 people [and $300,000 more in costs].
