Donald Trump is leading the GOP crusade against government regulations, but by doing so, he’s putting millions of lives at risk and will end up costing the economy billions of dollars. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
More links:
Trump To Waste Taxpayer Money Investigating A Conspiracy He Made Up
Democrats Draft Legislation To Limit Trump’s Nuclear Weapon Access
Transcript of the above video:
Donald Trump is proving himself to be a very useful tool of the Republican party. I say, “Useful tool,” because he’s not the one really calling the shots. The people calling the shots in Washington DC right now in the White House are his advisors. Pro corporate millionaires and billionaires who are using Donald Trump to get everything that they have ever wanted. Case in point is regulations. The entire Republican party has always been against any kind of government regulations. They tell us that it kills jobs, or hurts American workers, it hurts businesses that are out there just trying to do the right thing. It cuts into profits, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Point is, Donald Trump right now is carrying out the GOP war on regulations, all in the name of helping the economy and helping the American workers.
Here are the facts, and these are facts that I have said many times, and I’ll have to say them many more times in the future. Regulations create job. Regulations create economic growth. Destroying these regulations not only destroys parts of the economy, but it destroys American jobs, and more importantly, destroys American’s health. Right now Donald Trump is taking aim at regulations at both the Environmental Protections Agency, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
He wants these regulations, that protect American lives, and the U.S. environment, to go away. Why? Corporations want these regulations to go away, because they have to pay a little bit more money to make sure that they’re not poisoning citizens, poisoning the air, poisoning the water, and destroying the environment. They have to pay a little bit more. Trump is there destroying these regulations. You know what that means? Regulations from the EPA, from I believe about 2010 to 2014, produced close to … Excuse me, 172 billion dollars of economic growth. 172 billion dollars of economic growth, and that is the lowest possible estimate. Some estimates actually have that as high as 668 billion dollars in economic growth.
Now, these regulations cost 48 billion. You spend 48 billion, you make a minimum of 172 billion dollars. I don’t know anyone on this planet who wouldn’t take that investment. Additionally, the last two presidents who have been pro regulation, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, saw job growth in the United States grow 2.5 times faster than the prior Republican administrations who were anti regulation, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Not too many numbers available from George H.W. Bush, because the study that Joe Romm at ThinkProgress sighted actually only counts presidents who served two terms.
We’re talking about regulations creative 2.5 times more jobs than Republican’s who come into office and kill regulations. We’re losing jobs under Donald Trump. We’re losing economic growth under Donald Trump. That’s what Republicans won’t tell you. They’re not going to tell you the bad things that happen when they repeal regulations. They’re only going to tell you that, “Wow, this sure is going to help businesses create more jobs.” Except the fact is, they don’t. There is no data to back up that claim, but there is data to prove them wrong. Most people don’t take the time to look at the data. Most people don’t take the time to go read about it. They only know what they hear from Republican talking points coming out of now both the White House, Republican Think Tanks, and Republican media.
They’re not going to tell you that repealing clean air protections is going to lead to thousands upon thousands of more deaths every single year in the United States. They’re not going to tell you that. They’re not going to tell you that gutting the Department of Health and Human Services is going to reduce response time for any national epidemic, or pandemic that takes place. Any time there is a health crisis in the United States, we won’t be able to respond properly or adequately. That’s going to cost lives. They won’t tell you that. All they’re going to tell you is, “Hey, we cut some funding from these government agencies cause we want a balanced budget,” as if that really matters for some reason.
They’re not just going to take that money and put it into a savings account. They’re going to flip it over into the military, and buy more tanks, and guns, and bombs, and go kill some more people overseas. Meanwhile, they’re going to completely ignore the fact that we have Americans dying because we don’t have clean air to breathe, or clean water to drink.
