The following is a total quote from an editorial in the May 7th Wall Street Journal. The Journal is a great newspaper! I doubt that I could do without it. It isn't cheap. About $450 a year, but it is easy to spend two hours on each issue and then barely cover it The Journal usually has eight to ten editorials in each issue. At any rate, the following editorial hits the nail on its head.
"On Wednesday, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, rolled out his annual report card on federal regulation, "Ten Thousand Commandments." Beltway rules are now imposing $1.9 trillion of annual costs on the U.S. economy. That's the same level as last year, but when combined with on-the-books federal spending, which is $3.9 trillion, the feds are taking a record-setting bite out of private commerce and wealth. The Regulatory burden is staggering for the economy and for all who live and work within it. The annual tab for complying with directives from Washington, is now larger than the entire economy of Russia. The cost of federal red tape amounts to nearly $15,000 per U.S. household each year.
"And the bureaucratic onslaught will continue, even as we enter the final months of the last year of President Obama's second term. Mr. Crews reports that regulators spanning 60 federal departments, agencies, and commissions, have nearly 3,000 regulations still in the pipeline and waiting to be imposed on an unsuspecting public. Is it any wonder that the government reported modest job growth in April and a shrinking labor force? Or that the U.S. economy wheezed its way to a 0.5% growth in the first quarter?
"Mr. crew's data also show that the regulatory burden falls particularly hard on small firms, which suffer higher compliance costs per employee than larger competitors. This may explain why readings of small business hiring, looks even worse for the economy as a whole. The Obama Administration was the first in American history to generate more than 80,000 pages of new and proposed rules in the Federal Register in a single year. Mr. Obama and his minions have now managed the feat three times. They are responsible for six of the top seven years of red tape creation in the country's history. His legacy is a Washington leviathan atop a private economy that grows increasingly less able to support it."
A long piece by Peggy Noonan on the next page bears a quote of one of her 23 paragraphs about Donald Trump, who she likes.
"When Mr. Trump was on, the ratings jumped, but it wasn't only the ratings, it was something else. It was the freak show at its zenith. It was great TV- you didn't know what he was going to say next! He didn't know! It was better than everyone else's boring, prefabricated, airless, weightless, relentless word-saying. Better than Ted Cruz who seemed like someone who practiced sincere hand gestures in the mirror at night. Better than Marco, the moist robot, and better than Hillary's grim and horrifying attempts to chuckle like a person who chuckles." And a final paragraph in the piece: "Finally, can Mr. Trump win? Of course. Uphill but possible. If this year has taught us anything, it is what Harrison Salisbury said he'd learned from a lifetime in journalism: "Expect the unexpected."
Is Trump a 'conservative?' If you mean someone who wants to 'conserve' the United States as a free nation and free from meddling, rule making, harassing central government… then you bet he is a true conservative. If by the usual term 'conservative,' you mean a D.C. politico who compromises on everything, loves foreign wars, has no concept of a balanced budget or small government, wants to endlessly legislate their idea of morality and enforce it with myriad laws, etc, as has been typical of Republican 'conservatives' for far too many decades, then he is not one…thanks goodness!