Newly emboldened as chair of the House's key investigative committee, Congressman Darrell Issa, a conservative California Republican, this week sent letters to more than 150 business lobby groups, asking them to identify government rules that they want eliminated
Issa wants to hand the government over to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a who's who of corporate America. The new Republican Congress is their opportunity to get rid of those pesky environmental laws, consumer product safety laws, and even rules to prevent another Wall Street financial train wreck.
Issa plans to hold hearings of his Oversight and Government Reform Committee to explore how he can help corporate America rid itself of "burdensome government regulations." According to Politico, Issa asked businesses, including Duke Energy, FMC Corp., Toyota and Bayer, to supply him with their wish lists. He also sent letters to industry lobby groups including the American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Association of American Railroads, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) and entities representing health care and telecommunication providers.
It isn't hard to imagine what that their wish list will look like. Indeed, it hasn't changed much in the past century. The specific bills and issues ebb and flow, but the business mantra is always the same. Get government off our backs. Let the "free" market determine what we make and how we make it. We can police ourselves. Too many government rules kills jobs.
Issa is only the most recent incarnation of conservative members of Congress who hold hearings to give their corporate allies a platform to warn about the disastrous consequences of government activism.
Let's go back in time and see what corporate leaders have predicted about proposed government rules seeking to make business more socially responsible:
- In 1906, Thomas Wilson, an executive from the Morris and Company, a large meatpacking firm (a co-founder of the National Packing Company or "Beef Trust,") opposed the Meat Inspection Act, designed to protect consumers from contaminated meat. "We are opposed to a bill...that will put our business in the hands of theorists, chemists, sociologists, etc.," he said," and the management and control taken away from the men who have devoted their lives to the upbuilding and perfecting of this great American industry."
These are but a tiny sample of corporate America's persistent and misleading "cry wolf" warnings about government regulations that most Americans today accept as common sense efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment from business greed or indifference.
Fortunately, the general public, and many conscientious elected officials, ignored businesses' false warnings and adopted laws and regulations that have made America a safer, more prosperous, and more humane society. If Issa's ideological predecessors had let business lobby groups decide what regulations they wanted:
- Child labor wouldn't have been outlawed and 12-year-olds would still be working 12 hour shifts in dangerous industries as they still do today in countries with fewer labor laws.
And this is just a partial list. There would be no labeling requirements to show nutritional content of the foods we eat or warning labels on cigarettes. Dangerous chemicals like asbestos, DDT, PCB's, lead and many other toxins would still be in our workplaces, homes and communities. There's be no Clean Water Act or Truth in Lending Act. More people would die from Salmonella or E-Coli poisoning from the foods we eat.
Issa is only the latest corporate lackey to practice crony capitalism. What's needed is a different version -- responsible capitalism -- that recognizes the balance between business profits and the public interest.