Why fix the economy when you can overregulate it?
By Brian Schoeneman | Saturday, December 4th, 2010 | PolicyYesterday morning, the Labor Department announced the unemployment rate had ticked up to 9.8%. We are all aware that all Americans face a significant tax increase on January 1 if extensions of the current tax rates aren’t passed. Gays are still barred from serving openly in the military despite a DoD report that confirms that military readiness will not suffer if the bar is repealed. With such significant legislation pending in the lame duck session, it’s hard to figure out what’s the most important and should be done first. Right?
Wrong. If you’re a Democrat in the House of Representatives, you know that the most important thing that needs to pass is more regulation. On Thursday, the House passed the “CALM” Act, the cutely named Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. What does it do? Well, it bars television networks and cable providers from adjusting the volume of commercials to louder levels than the main programming.
I am not making this up.
Apparently, it is more important for Congress to pass more regulation on private industry than it is to ensure our taxes don’t go up, deal with unemployment and turn the economy around. It’s even more important, apparently, than allowing gay service members to serve openly. And people think John Kyl is being unreasonable when he says we can’t get the START Treaty ratified in the lame duck? When Congress is wasting time on non-priorities like this, why does anyone expect something legitimate to get done?
I also have a problem with the legislation itself. The last thing we need is more regulations – especially on trivial nonsense like this. People actually believe it is such a serious problem that some commercials are louder than the TV shows that they feel it necessary to lobby Congress to get a law passed to outlaw the practice. Seriously? Is there a TV in America manufactured in the last twenty years that doesn’t have a mute button on the remote control? Are there members of Congress who honestly believe that it’s better to pass a law than tell people to press mute? Besides, in these modern days of DVRs, TIVO, Netflix, On Demand, Youtube and Hulu, how many people are actually watching live TV where they aren’t fast-forwarding through the commercials anyway?
The other issue here is that this law will have an impact on advertisers. This will actually cost them money. The louder commercials aren’t done by accident – it’s a calculated thing, designed to help grab peoples attention and ensure that advertising reaches peoples ears when they get up to go to the kitchen or the bathroom during the break. You can charge a little extra to pump up the volume and advertisers will pay it. Now that revenue is lost, all because Congress thinks the American people are too stupid to push mute. Another way Congress is over-regulating and making it harder for business to do business in the middle of this economic downturn.
The bill passed on a voice vote, so I can’t take a shot at any specific Republicans for supporting it, but I can chastise the Democrats for allowing the bill any floor time. The CALM Act is a clear example of why the Democrats lost control of the House – instead of handling legitimate problems, they would rather play nanny state and pass more regulation than focusing on jobs and the economy.
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
A veteran political professional, a long-time Republican party activist and new attorney, Brian W. Schoeneman has been offering his opinions at Bearing Drift since 2010. He serves on the Board of Virginia Line Media, LLC, which operates Bearing Drift and spends his days representing the U.S. Merchant Marine in Washington, D.C. He hails from Fairfax County, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and son.
We're 75% there! Thank you to everyone who has so far contributed! Just $2000 to go!
Comments
15 Responses to "Why fix the economy when you can overregulate it?"
That’s our lovely Democrat controlled Congress. Fix what ain’t broken, and ignore the pressing issues. The Dems seem to think that regulation is the answer to all the country’s ills, when it’s their overreaching regulation that is causing the problems.
The electorate has been telling Congress pass the extension of the tax rates, and they pass food regulations.
We tell them to control spending and they control the volume of TV advertisements.
We tell them to fix the border problems, and they come up with the DREAM (nightmare is more like it) Act.
The Republicans try to put a stop to Democrat insanity, and are called the party of no. Well now with the Dems controlling a lame duck session of Congress, and not extending the tax cuts for all working Americans, they are the party of no. Which is precisely why they were swept out of the House.
Pelosi called the grass roots Tea Party movement “astroturf”, which showed her disdain for the people. How’s that astroturf looking now, Nancy?
just another dumb way to give the govt more ways to charge penalties to the private sector. even though its mostly voluntary right now it will eventually become mandatory.
I bet they exempted political ads.
Brian, the text of the bill only notes “commercial advertisements” – so that sounds to me like yes, they didn’t intend to cover political advertisements.
Hilarious.
When I heard about this yesterday, I LMAO. I could hardly believe that in this environment the Democrats would bother to take time with something as petty and silly as this.
This falls into the realm of regulating water flow through a shower-head or the gallons permitted for a toilet flush – but at least there’s a rational argument even for those.
When will the 112th be sworn in? It can’t come soon enough.
This was passed by acclimation b/c it had broad bipartisan support (you know, liberal Republicans like Rep. LaTourette). But don’t let that get in the way of a completely thought-free rant. It’s what BD eats up, no? I mean, why face the truth about blocking the START treaty when you can just make shit up?
I can’t wait to see all of the on-point and useful proposals of the 112th Congress. I look forward to all of you explaining why the the budget isn’t immediately balanced, why opponents are being unfair if they speculate as to where the insane legislative proposals are leading, or how all of the hateful crap that comes out of it isn’t *really* reflective of the GOP.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bearing Drift, For Free. For Free said: Why fix the economy when you can overregulate it? : Bearing Drift … http://bit.ly/igLuD9 [...]
MB, I am wellmaware that the bill had bipartisan support, and I noted it passed on a voice vote. There is nothing thoughtless about my issue here – the lack of thought is on the side of those who would rather regulate than simply tell their constituents to use their mute buttons.
I want to see the START treaty passed sooner rather than later, but unlike the tax cuts, there’s no hard deadline for reauthorization. It’s not like the Senatenwont pass the bill next session. But Kyl’s point about needing more time gets bolstered when Congress is dumping bills like this onto the floor. I guess they wanted a palate cleanser after censuring Rangel.
Will someone please just shoot me??! The senate bill was introduced by the Republican junior senator from Mississippi,Roger Wicker, who later tried to put the genie back in the bottle. http://wicker.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9d6f5f70-b5d8-71e6-854a-25be7920b09f&Region_id=&Issue_id=
http://wicker.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9d6f5f70-b5d8-71e6-854a-25be7920b09f&Region_id=&Issue_id=
There’s Washington and then there’s the rest of the country. Haven’t repeated polls shown that Washington insiders (ruling class) think that the country is going swimmingly while everyone else thinks it’s underwater? The one thing that strikes the insiders with fear is irrelevancy. Their antidote is instilling fear and control over every citizen every second. Then try to ignore them. They’ll punish you good. While Republicans definitely share some blame it is the Dems who are the true totalitarians.
Damned right, Brian! And while we’re at it lets also rant about that stupid FTC system called National Do Not Call List. I sure do miss getting all those phone calls in the middle of dinner every night offering me everything from timeshares in Florida to vinyl siding for my brick home.
Question: if Congress is deadlocked in a lame duck session on the major issues, are they prohibited from passing any bipartisan, uncontroversial legislation?
Sheez, sometimes you guys can really get your panties bunched up in a wad over nothing.
HISROC apparently knows nothing about the mute button. You would think leftists would be in a frenzy that their beloved government doesn’t even have a budget over two months after the start of the FY courtesy of the Dems. The big point here apart from the relentless nannyism is that the regs do Not apply to politicians themselves! They are free to abuse the volume anytime. The next bill will forbid anyone to mute Their commercials. HISROC loves the fact that Dem politicians exempt themselves from all their regulations including Obamacare. Nothing is too good for the Democrat saints laboring on his behalf. He is also good enough not to question why they would want to exempt themselves from their wonderful regulations.
valentinus,
As noted by Brian in the posting, the bill passed by voice vote. Since you obviously don’t understand what that means, a voice vote is used when there are few or no opposing votes. That means everyone present, both Democrats and Republicans voted for this bill. Under House rules a member can move for a roll call vote if he believes that the voice voice was not conclusive. This technique is often employed when those in opposition want to have the members of their own party who voted Yea recorded. That apparently did not happen here, so this was as bipartisan as anything can possibly be these days.
As for the Democrats excluding themselves from this regulation, first see above. Second, I have seen nothing that exempts political ads. Third, I doubt if the technology is available to selectively filter commercial ads and not political ads.
On the other hand, both Democrats and Republicans have a long history of exempting themselves from every regulatory law from equal employment opportunity to the Do No Call List. Just when did this become a liberal vice?
You seem to think that it is a conservative value to have to pick up you remote and hit the mute button every time a commercial comes on and then hit it again when the program comes back on if you don’t want to be assailed by commercial noise. I would think that a greater conservative value would be to not be subjected to unwanted commercial noise in the first place.
As it so happens, I favored this law for the same reason as the member of Congress who introduced it. When my mother was terminally ill, I spent a great deal of time visiting with her at her home. She enjoyed have a television program on while we visited, particularly movies. She would invariably drift off to sleep and when a commercial came on it would jar her awake if I couldn’t hit the mute button fast enough or was out of the room when it came on. So, whatever leftist agenda you think I am pursuing has nothing to do with my opinion on this matter. And if you read some of the other postings on this blog you will quickly find that I am hardly a Democrat or liberal.
A system of governance predicated on the notion that the state’s function is not merely to uphold property rights, maintain equality before the law and defend borders, but perpetually to meddle with its citizens’ lives in order supposedly to make their existence more fair, more safe, more eco-friendly, more healthy always produces the same result: more taxation, more regulation, less freedom. Less “fairness” too, of course. Those are my “Amit” thoughts.
I often fall asleep with the TV on so I am unable to disagree with HisRoc. Need less regulation but how do you solve problems like this without government?
Climate Realists
The Realist Take On Climate Change
The Death Blow to Anthropogenic Global Warming by Stephen Wilde who has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1396&linkbox=true&position=1
The Constitution, and the order and governance for society that it seeks to provide, is not absolute or black and white. Just as there are balances to our Bill of Rights, civil liberties are not absolute freedoms but a schedule of conflicting rights, there are balances in government regulation, taxation, fairness, and freedom.
People who decry “the loss of freedom” in government actions often are those who would deny freedom to others for their own selfish gain. I do not have the freedom to defraud or deceive you in a commercial transaction. You are not required to test my product before you buy it to determine that it does what I represent that it does. If I misrepresent it and you buy it, then I have committed a crime. If I go to a theater to enjoy a show, and you falsely scream “fire” and create a panic, then you have committed a crime.
Broadcasters are should not be allowed to invade my peaceful enjoyment of programming with intentionally intrusive commercial messages. It has nothing to do with the mute button and laziness; it is all about personal liberty.
Leave your response