Fox’s Cashin’ In Endorses Perry’s Idea To Suspend All Regulations
Reported by Guest Blogger - August 29, 2011 -
By Brian
Breathing dirty air or uninspected food? No problem for several of the Fox News regulars of Cashin’ In, part of the Saturday morning “business block” line up on August 20, 2011. Host Cheryl Casone called Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry’s idea to suspend all federal regulations for six months an “interesting idea.” When that “interesting idea” was challenged by guest Christian Dorsey, who suggested that breathing clean air and eating safe food were beneficial to society, Casone dismissed the concern by saying you can always sue if there’s arsenic in your Big Mac. Seriously.
Libertarian Jonathan Hoenig went first. Surely, Casone knew Hoenig would endorse the idea most wholeheartedly. Hoenig said, "Governor Perry, unfortunately, Cheryl, doesn't go far enough. We don’t need a six-month moratorium on federal regulation. We need an end to the policy of regulations, specifically over the economy. People think that free market means free to do whatever you want. It's obviously not. It means free from government. And this whole entire regulatory state we have is immoral, it’s impractical, it makes honest businesspeople guilty before they've committed any crime. Harder to hire, harder to profit, and it should be done away with for the benefit of the economy, for the benefit of jobs."
News Hounds Top Dog Dorsey said, "To talk about the cost of regulations without talking about their benefits is a one-sided conversation." He said the economic problem is "not enough demand for the goods and services that businesses produce."
Casone added another stamp of approval for Perry (and disapproval of Obama): "If you look at what the President has done since he’s been in office, it’s more regulations than either Clinton or Bush put into place when they were in office... Maybe… the Governor of Texas is onto something here."
Dorsey said to Hoenig, "(Regulations) have costs but they also have benefits. Can you not acknowledge that? …The Clean Air Act, for example, is credited with saving two million lives since 1990. You're saying that that's not a societal benefit?"
"No," Hoenig said.
Dorsey continued, "The ability to regulate food so that it doesn’t make you sick is not a benefit?"
Hoenig was sarcastic. "If it wasn't for regualtors, McDonald's would be putting arsenic in those billions and billions. Thank God for the regulators, folks, because if it wasn't for them, honest businesspeople would be ripping you off every day."
Casone chirped, “If you have arsenic in your coffee at McDonald’s, you’re free to sue. That’s why it’s called the United States of America!”
Common Dreams has more on the benefits of regulation.
