Schubart: Deregulation

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(Host)
Among the various policy proposals being set forth during this campaign
season, there is one in particular that commentator Bill Schubart finds
troubling.

(Schubart) A relentless conservative theme in this
election is "less government regulation." And I can support conservative
calls for lowered government spending if done strategically, since I
have come to regard the pursuit of lower taxes as simply a self-serving
prerogative of those in power, but I find the notion of across-the-board
deregulation deeply disturbing.

Big business’ ability to buy access to government and, more recently, to the electoral process has consequences.

As
citizens, we are still feeling the effects of deregulation in the
financial, pharmaceutical, airline and broadcast industries among
others. Having failed to eliminate regulatory agencies altogether, big
business invests in friendly legislators to ensure their vote against
funding agencies staffing and operations .

The result is that
industries can more freely develop, market, and deploy chemicals, drugs,
financial instruments, processed foods and consumer products with
little or no proof that they are safe or even beneficial. Regulatory
practice is moving away from prevention toward damage control and
remediation.

Say, for example, a chemical flame retardant is
found to pose long-term health risk to infants. Eventually we’ll find
out, of course, but only after a generation of human damage and clinical
studies, at which time the product will be removed from the market or
its use limited.

From the citizen’s standpoint, it’s much smarter
and more cost-effective to ensure a product’s safety and efficacy
before it’s sold . Pick any product: tainted or ineffective drugs, GMO
seeds, dangerous chemicals in consumer products,
fat-salt-&-sugar-saturated junk foods, pesticides, toxic financial
investments – the list is long.

Regulation should balance
consumer and business interests. To business, it should be clear,
consistent and enforceable, requiring business to demonstrate a product
or services’ human and environmental safety as well as its advertised
benefits. Regulation should take into account international competition
by requiring the same of all products entering the market.

Self-regulation,
like so many business policy experiments, has failed miserably. People
and businesses both need rules by which to play.

One of the
near-term threats to regulation coming from the Citizens United decision
is spelled out in a University of Tulsa College of Law Research Paper.
Extending free speech rights to corporations jeopardizes the
long-standing "commercial speech doctrine." Given the right case, the
commercial speech doctrine, which protects commercial speech as long as
it is not false or misleading and does not advertise illegal or harmful
activity, could fall and any regulatory limits to corporate speech or
advertising could fall with it, eliminating truth-in-advertising
regulation. The rationale behind regulation is consumer and
environmental protection, not protecting business. Regulation should do
everything in its power to ensure a healthy business climate, but only
after it ensures the health of consumers and the world they live in
first.

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