WSJ: The GOP vs. Labor Law

[Omaha Steve]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574471534262019094.html

The signature achievement of the late Republican ascendancy was government failure. Regulators scaled back enforcement. Agencies were filled with former lobbyists.

It worked superbly for the party's supporters, but not so well for the rest of us. And today, though the GOP has paid for its sins at the polls, it is still playing the same game.

Last week, Sen. Mike Enzi, Republican of Wyoming, announced that he was placing a "hold" on the nomination of M. Patricia Smith as solicitor of the U.S. Department of Labor. I suspect his reason for going after Ms. Smith, who is currently the New York State labor commissioner, is because she is an effective and innovative labor bureaucrat. With Mr. Enzi's hold, she will now need 60 votes in the Senate to win confirmation.


Associated Press

Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo.


What Mr. Enzi claims to find intolerable about Ms. Smith is the way she has described New York's "Wage Watch" program, which encourages employees to report labor law violations. In a letter to President Barack Obama, Mr. Enzi claimed there were "four significant inconsistencies between Ms Smith's statements" and documents describing the program. One of which—prepare yourself—concerns just who came up with the idea for the program. Ms. Smith originally said it was somebody in her department, but later she allowed that one of her lieutenants may have gotten the idea from someone who didn't work for the department. Woe betide those who get their ideas from others!

Mr. Enzi characterizes Ms. Smith's mistakes as damning errors, but the real issue is regulation, and government's willingness to enforce it. We now know that it wasn't a good idea to defund and demoralize the agencies that were supposed to supervise the financial industry, but the lesson should go much deeper than that. The late Bush administration practiced regulatory euthanasia all across Washington, and the consequences have been felt in every corner of the economy.

FULL story at link.