The Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Stanley Fischer, delivered his first major speech on banking regulations. “In short, actively breaking up the largest banks would be a very complex task, with uncertain payoff…Would breaking up the largest banks end the need for future bailouts? That is not clear…” The crude measure to break up large banks had been linked to a notion that a few too big to fail banks acted recklessly, causing the financial crisis. Now with the Fed publically separating from this policy, maybe we can move forward on good policy options.

Last night the House Republicans filed the draft documents to sue President Obama on unilateral decisions to delay the employer mandate. The next step in the process will be a hearing and then a vote in the House Rules Committee.

There has been no question that the president's “Year of Action” has led to more regulations by the administration. Recently, the administration hit $100 billion in regulatory costs issued this year, moving at twice the speed of previous years. AAF releases research yesterday detailing the breakneck speed of these costs and what it means to the states that will bear the brunt of the burdens.

Eakinomics: POTUS on the Economy

For the ___th (insert your favorite integer bigger than 20) time the president has pivoted back to the economy in an attempt to change the subject from things that are going even worse — Libya, Syria, Iran, Ukraine, IRS, Supreme Court rulings, ObamaCare, VA….. In Austin yesterday he spiked the football. “And also because my administration made some good decisions early that were tough and not always popular — (applause) — we’ve now seen 52 straight months of job growth, 10 million jobs created, unemployment rate the lowest it’s been since September of 2008.”

The problem with spiking the football is you have to be in the end zone.

You are not in the end zone when the faction of the population that has a job, 59 percent, is still 4 percentage points below what it was before the recession began.

Or when the U-6 — a comprehensive measure of underemployment and unemployment — remains above 12 percent.

Or when inflation-adjusted personal income per capita has grown at a rate of 0.7% annually — meaning it will take 100 years for the standard of living to double.

Or when the median family income has fallen during the “recovery.”

The list could be longer. Of course, the president acknowledged that things weren’t perfect saying, “So we know that we’ve got more work to do. …the problem is that Washington is not working the way it’s supposed to.”  Wrong. The problem is too great a reliance on Washington. The problem is top-down, 1970s-style industrial regulatory policies. The problem is a failure to appreciate the entrepreneurial, organic, bottom-up nature of market-driven growth. The Administration has yet to catch on to how growth happens.

But fear not. He still has his trusty scapegoat: Republicans. “…the reason Washington doesn’t work is very simple:  You’ve got one party whose main goal, it seems, is just to say no.” It is a good thing he has put the well-being of the American middle-class above election year politics.

From The Forum

$100 Billion in Regulatory Costs by Sam Batkins, AAF Director of Regulatory Policy