Eggedon by well heeled lobbyists hired by American business interests, theRepublican Luddites in the House have pushed through relatively unnoticed HR4078 – a 92 page bill that threatens to grind to a screeching halt all theprogress of the last 25 years in enhancing the safety of the jobs we go to, thecars we drive, the toys our children play with, the medicine we take, the foodwe eat, the water we drink, and even the air we breathe. Euphemistically entitledthe “Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act,” the legislationbars all federal regulatory agencies from promulgating any significant new safetyrules from the date of passage until the Secretary of Labor certifies that unemployment is below 6.0%. This has to be one of the most stupid bills everpassed by either house of Congress.
Althougheconomists of every stripe have long since debunked the notion that federal safetyrules hamper job creation, Republican politicians cling to that mantra. Truthis, Congress is powerless to eliminate the social costs of safety. All Congresscan do – and this bill does it in spades – is shift those costs from a fewpennies each paid by every citizen back to the shoulders of those few andnearly invisible families affected by the tragedy of hundreds of thousands oreven millions of dollars in medical bills, lost income, and often permanentdisability suffered when unsafe jobs, cars, toys, medicine, food or watersicken, injure or kill a family member. Republicans want, for reasons knownonly to the lobbyists from whom they receive their campaign donations, to takeus back to the days at the beginning of the industrial revolution when it was aworker’s tough luck if an on the job injury cost him or her an arm, leg, lungor paralysis, and left his or her family destitute as a result. They wouldrather have a citizenry of amputees, invalids and cripples on the public dole thanan additional 2% of able bodied unemployed workers.
Ifthis legislation makes sense, it is only the political sense of pandering to abusiness constituency at the expense of Americans of all stations in life.There is not a shred of economic sense, social justice sense, or even commonsense in this bill. Each and every one of us has benefitted from the advancesin the safety and healthfulness of our jobs, cars, toys, medicines, food, waterand air produced by the last quarter century or more of federal safety rules. Theonly ones who would benefit from passage of this horrible bill in the Senateare Republicans who collect huge campaign funds and Super Pac donations fromspecial interest business lobbyists when they vote in favor of this law.
Prayfor us all that the Senate leaves this piece of miserable and misery inducinglegislation on the table in a darkened committee room where it belongs. Prayeven harder that President Obama has the guts to veto it if it should everreach the Oval Office.
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