Incredibly well-written and well-documented… I never understood (and still don’t understand) how our government initially allowed (and continues to allow) corporate fees to be paid to our regulatory agencies or how it allowed (and continues to allow) the glorious revolving door. In either case, it doesn’t take the proverbial rocket scien…
Incredibly well-written and well-documented… I never understood (and still don’t understand) how our government initially allowed (and continues to allow) corporate fees to be paid to our regulatory agencies or how it allowed (and continues to allow) the glorious revolving door. In either case, it doesn’t take the proverbial rocket scientist to figure out that blind eyes and “special” favors will always supplant “regulation.”
My guess is that it ran along the lines of, "Why should taxpayers foot this entire bill? Why aren't the companies who will make the profits paying for the work to assess and approve, or not, their products?" You can see the logic and fairness of this argument, and though I don't know who was behind the institution of it as policy, it reminds me of the general ideas and policies of the Reagan era. I can also imagine that, since so much money in regulatory burden and possible future profits (or only losses) were at stake, that companies trying to get products through the regulatory agencies did everything they could behind the scenes to influence the outcome. Perhaps it was thought that instituting user fees would at least put the money flow into the open.
The solution to the 'too much money in politics' problem is to push as hard as we can to get back to the constitutional limits on federal powers. If the federal government only did what it is allowed to do in the Constitution, there really would be very little to fight over domestically; the federal government's powers were to have to do with externals - foreign policy, etc. The states and the people were to be self-governing over internal issues.
Incredibly well-written and well-documented… I never understood (and still don’t understand) how our government initially allowed (and continues to allow) corporate fees to be paid to our regulatory agencies or how it allowed (and continues to allow) the glorious revolving door. In either case, it doesn’t take the proverbial rocket scientist to figure out that blind eyes and “special” favors will always supplant “regulation.”
My guess is that it ran along the lines of, "Why should taxpayers foot this entire bill? Why aren't the companies who will make the profits paying for the work to assess and approve, or not, their products?" You can see the logic and fairness of this argument, and though I don't know who was behind the institution of it as policy, it reminds me of the general ideas and policies of the Reagan era. I can also imagine that, since so much money in regulatory burden and possible future profits (or only losses) were at stake, that companies trying to get products through the regulatory agencies did everything they could behind the scenes to influence the outcome. Perhaps it was thought that instituting user fees would at least put the money flow into the open.
The solution to the 'too much money in politics' problem is to push as hard as we can to get back to the constitutional limits on federal powers. If the federal government only did what it is allowed to do in the Constitution, there really would be very little to fight over domestically; the federal government's powers were to have to do with externals - foreign policy, etc. The states and the people were to be self-governing over internal issues.