One thing you hear from republicans and conservatives constantly is that federal regulations eliminate jobs and are a drag on the economy. If only we didn't make our factories and businesses comply with EPA and OSHA and other workplace regulations, our economy would be booming.
They're right. But...
In 2009 I spent 3 weeks in China, traveling from Beijing down to the beaches on the South China Sea near the Vietnam border and back up to Beijing again. When you land in Beijing airport, there is a huge, scrolling electronic sign that advises you of all the diseases you might catch in China and what the symptoms are: thyphoid fever, cholera, dengue fever, CSARs, bird flu, yellow fever and - really - bubonic plague. Everybody except the poorest of the poor drinks bottled water because of cholera. I stayed in 5 star hotels (in China it's either a 5 star or a 1 star, nothing much in between). Every morning when they cleaned my room they brought in a fresh supply of bottled water. So you can't even drink the water in a five star hotel. The pollution in Beijing creaated a murky brown haze that hung over the city. We had planned a boat trip down the yellow river, but parts of it are so polluted from factory runoff that your eyes burn and you can't breath in certain places on that waterway. People work long, long hours without benefits, there's no social security, the state spies on you and you do what your boss says or else.
Why? Because the Chinese don't have the EPA, OSHA, a Clean Air Act, public health initiatives, etc.
Get the picture? Sure, we can bury China's economy overnight and get ours booming like crazy if we remove regulations. But you won't be able to drink the water, breath the air, complain about the dangerous working conditions or long hours at your job and when you're too old to work, you'll be on your own. If you lose a hand on an unsafe machine, you're also on your own.
So you choose: regulations or quality of life. Sometimes you have to compromise in life
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