Americans Favor Regulations More Than Romney Bargained On
By Jim Snyder - Nov 12, 2012 12:00 AM ET
Mitt Romney urged voters to reject President Barack Obama and his “job-killing” regulations. Obama’s victory last week shows many Americans aren’t as reflexively anti-Washington as Romney expected.
In fact, presidents through history who aggressively used the tools of government at their disposal have won favor, and re-election.
“The idea that there simply was a deference to private property and individual rights is one of these American myths,” said William Novak, a University of Michigan law professor who has written on regulatory history.
From Democrat Franklin Roosevelt to Republican Richard Nixon, leaders who imposed federal limits on monopolists, polluters and Wall Street have won re-election sometimes with resounding margins.
Elections, of course, turn on many issues. Republican Ronald Reagan seized a second term as a foe of federal rules. Yet the man he beat four years earlier, Democrat Jimmy Carter, deregulated U.S. airlines.
Romney, the Republican nominee for president and a former Massachusetts governor, promised to unravel Obama’s signature Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, repeal his Dodd- Frank Wall Street regulatory law and decried his environmental regulation as a “war on coal.” While Romney conceded as Election Day neared that some regulations are beneficial, including new limits on Wall Street, he called Obama’s rules excessive and pledged to mow them down with a “weed whacker.”
more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-12/americans-favoring-regulators-in-chief-seen-in-history-for-obama.html
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