http://www.heritage.org/research/ The Heritage Foundation Papers: Regulation Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:10:19 EST http://www.heritage.org/ui/icons/thflogo.gif http://www.heritage.org/ en-us heritage.org Copyright 2009 The Heritage Foundation In response to the recent financial crisis, the Obama Administration and the Federal Reserve Board are capping executive salaries and bonuses, and imposing a host of new regulations and mandates--all in the name of reducing risk. If the rule of unintended consequences applies anywhere, it applies here. Government pay rules have been tried before--and have consistently increased the very salaries and special bonuses they intended to curb. Besides, a sense of risk--instead of the certainty of taxpayer bail-outs--is precisely what would rein in some of the reckless corporate practices rightly decried by the government and American citizens. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/bg2336.cfm The Heritage Foundation - David M. Mason Regulation Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:41:24 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/bg2336.cfm Despite honest attempts to improve the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009, the overall concept is still badly flawed. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2650.cfm The Heritage Foundation - David C. John Regulation Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:09:49 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2650.cfm The rise of government by bureaucrats--due to the delegation of power from Congress to administrative agencies, combined with the removal of those agencies from the President's control--has given rise to efforts by Presidents from both parties to get the bureaucratic state under control through various mechanisms. The rise of "czars" in the current administration is just another manifestation--albeit, an unfortunate one--of this phenomenon. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Thought/tst100809a.cfm The Heritage Foundation - Matthew Spalding, Ph.D. Regulation Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:10:10 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/Thought/tst100809a.cfm The Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act (ITLEAA)--currently under consideration in Congress--would subject small businesses to a series of complicated and burdensome reporting requirements. These new requirements are rem­iniscent to those imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, and would have similarly negative consequences: increased costs and reductions in business activity and job creation. Further­more, the ITLEAA would do little to actually reduce the use of LLC forms for criminal activity--the purported goal of the legislation. http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0048.cfm The Heritage Foundation - Hans A. von Spakovsky and Andrew M. Grossman Regulation Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:15:00 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0048.cfm One year ago today Lehman Brothers collapsed. President Obama will mark the occasion with an address to Wall Street in which he will likely outline some broad principles for financial regulatory reform. Instead of rushing forward, Congress should enact real reform that focuses on modernizing the regulator framework, privatizing Fannie and Freddie, and using capital requirements to reduce the systemic risk of large financial institutions. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2610.cfm The Heritage Foundation - David C. John Regulation Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:52:57 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2610.cfm The Treasury Department has proposed consolidating the existing consumer protection divisions of the various federal financial regulatory agencies into a new and powerful Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). A far better approach would be to coordinate the consumer activities of existing state and federal financial agencies by creating a coordinating council designed to promote equal standards of consumer protection using agencies’ existing powers. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/bg2314.cfm The Heritage Foundation - David C. John Regulation Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:16:03 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/bg2314.cfm Despite its popularity, the cash-for-clunkers program is no success--unless success is defined as spending a lot of money quickly. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/wm2579.cfm The Heritage Foundation - James L. Gattuso and Nicolas D. Loris Regulation Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:05:04 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/wm2579.cfm The Obama Administration appointed a "pay czar" to oversee compensation at firms receiving substantial government backing. Regrettably, the Administration did not stop with government-aided companies but proposed regulating private-sector pay. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/wm2570.cfm The Heritage Foundation - David M. Mason Regulation Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:55:02 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/wm2570.cfm The PERI report does not estimate the economic impact of any policy currently being debated, and the job number finding is not the overall impact to the U.S. economy. The report studies the effect of a hypothetical large investment dropped into clean energy industries versus the effect of the same drop into carbon-based energy industries. The methodology used by the authors is deeply flawed. http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2303.cfm The Heritage Foundation - Karen A. Campbell, Ph.D. Regulation Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:41:50 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2303.cfm Today, enormously complex and demanding regulations are regularly paired with draconian criminal penalties for even minor deviations from the rules. Minor violations from time to time are all but inevitable because full compliance would be either impossible or impossibly expensive. Nearly every time, nobody notices or cares, but all it takes is one exception for the hammer of the law to strike. http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0044.cfm The Heritage Foundation - Andrew M. Grossman Regulation Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:37:41 EST http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0044.cfm