Boehner Asks White House to Tally Regulations

Today, Rep. John Boehner (Ohio), the House minority leader, sent a letter (PDF) to the White House asking President Barack Obama to tally the pending regulations that might cost the economy more than $1 billion.

The letter comes as Republicans push the argument that big Democratic policies — health care reform and financial regulatory reform chief among them — are causing businesses to hold back on hiring due to regulatory uncertainty, the belief that rising taxes and new rules might hurt sales. (Others argue a lack of aggregate demand, low consumer spending due to high rates of joblessness, is the obvious culprit.) The letter repeats a request made by Republican Reps. Geoff Davis (Ky.) and Trent Franks (Az.) to the Office of Informaiton and Regulatory Affairs in July. Boehner writes:

It has recently come to our attention that the Administration’s published regulatory agenda includes a total of 191 planned rulemakings, each with an estimated annual cost to our economy of $100 million or more, and that a number of these planned rulemakings may each have an annual economic cost in excess of $1 billion. During a recent job forum conducted through our America Speaking Out initiative, the uncertainty resulting from such rulemakings was cited by private sector job creators as one of the primary impediments to job creation currently facing small businesses.