Daily News Brief for Thursday, November 30th, 2023

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Thursday, November 30th, 2023. 
 
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/29/hidden-tax-how-much-does-regulation-cost-average-american-family/
 
Here’s How Much Regulations Cost Average American Family—and How Biden Is Making It Worse
 
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Americans expect to pay federal taxes, but the federal government also picks their pockets in more hidden ways, and President Joe Biden is making the problem worse in pursuing his political agenda, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
 
American households pay at least $14,000 in hidden regulatory costs every year,” Wayne Crews, the Fred L. Smith fellow in regulatory studies at the institute, says in a new video provided exclusively to The Daily Signal.
 
10,000 Reasons to Reform the Regulatory State- Play 0:00-1:18
 
His analysis—the latest in a series of annual reports—finds that the average American household pays $14,514 annually in a hidden regulatory cost.
 
Crews calculated the costs of regulation on the entire economy as $1.939 trillion, and found the average cost per household by dividing that gargantuan number by 133.6 million households.
 
While federal law requires an annual estimate of the cost of regulation, the federal government has not met that requirement since 2002, according to the report. While the Office of Management and Budget has estimated some costs and benefits of major rules, the report finds those analyses incomplete because they do not encompass all rulemaking in each year.
 
Crews’ report uses a baseline of roughly $1.9 trillion for the costs of federal regulation, encompassing compliance costs, economic losses and losses in gross domestic product, social costs, and other costs. The analyst took recent government reports into account to reach the $1.939 trillion figure, although he acknowledged that it represents an estimate “based on a nonscientific, disclaimer-laden, of GDP losses and compliance costs derived from available official data and other accessible sources.”
 
The $1.9 trillion represents more than three-fifths the level of corporate pretax profits in 2022 ($3.138 trillion) and a far larger number than estimated corporate tax revenues ($382 billion).
 
The report notes that while President Donald Trump’s four years “brought unique reversals, such as a reduced flow of new rules and some rollbacks of existing ones”, President Joe Biden reversed those trends. “Unprecedented open-ended deficits now standing at $1.4 trillion annually are expected to top $2 trillion annually by 2030,” Crews writes. The national debt is nearing $34 trillion (at $33.8 trillion now, according to the U.S. Treasury), which Crews notes is “up from almost $20 trillion when Donald Trump assumed office in 2017.”
 
The report notes that Biden has launched many “whole-of-government interventions,” most notably on climate change and rooting out “inequity from our economy.”
 
“These efforts have accelerated a long-standing process that is replacing self-determination and limited government with top-down behavioral, social, and civil rights codes,” Crews writes.
 
Regulations issued by the executive branch far outstrip the number of laws Congress passes each year. During the 2022 calendar year, agencies issued 3,168 rules, while Congress enacted only 247 laws.
 
While taxes clearly impact Americans’ pocketbooks and appear itemized on pay stubs, “regulatory costs are baked into prices, without separate charges on receipts,” the report notes. “Many regulations have opportunity costs, which are invisible and impossible to calculate. They can affect households directly or indirectly, such as when businesses will pass some regulatory costs on to consumers, just as they do the corporate tax.”
 
The report suggests a wide range of reforms to check the growth of regulation. It urges Congress to require congressional approval of significant or controversial agency rules before they become binding. It urges Congress to require annual regulatory transparency report cards and legislation requiring the automatic sunsetting of regulations. It urges Congress to pass a law preventing presidents from using “emergency declarations” to impose permanent government controls. It also urges Congress to identify which federal agencies do more harm than good and to eliminate them or shrink their budgets. It also urges Congress to set up a regulation-reduction commission to identify unneeded regulations to eliminate.
 
https://mynorthwest.com/3940877/rantz-inside-look-seattle-antifa-antisemites-starbucks/
 
An inside look as Seattle Antifa, antisemites vandalized Starbucks
 
Antisemitic Antifa activists, anarchists and other radicals targeted the Seattle Starbucks Reserve Roastery as part of a call to “Block Black Friday.” They caused felony-level damage that led to one arrest.
 
Activists promoted direct action by sharing social media flyers. The flyer claims the protest and mass vandalism were “autonomously organized by Seattle area radicals, anarchists, and community members.” The hope was to “shut [Black Friday] down for Palestine.” They were mostly successful.
 
Exclusive videos from inside the café as Antifa and anarchists vandalized the storefront and taunted customers with vulgar hand gestures and taunts. It got so rowdy and dangerous that activists said they forced Starbucks to close.
 
Several dozen activists surrounded the Starbucks Roastery. Many of them were dressed in black bloc, a style of clothing intended to hide personally identifiable characteristics so that police have trouble making arrests. It’s a hallmark of Antifa action.
 
The video shows one masked activist tagging the building with the phrase “Free Palestine” in spray paint. They also spray-painted the Palestinian flag, anarchist symbols and messages like “Never Again,” “Free Gaza,” , “You are genocide supporters” and “Land Back.”
 
The video also captures a masked activist flipping off customers. They even carved “Free Gaza” into the store’s wooden door. Another activist pounds his hand on the storefront window, taunting customers. One of the windows was nearly shattered and must be replaced and security cameras on the roof were sprayed with paint.
 
“During all of this, the atmosphere was upbeat but chill, with people eating tamales and drinking coffee that were being distributed from a truck parked next to the demo,” an anonymous author published on Puget Sound Anarchists.
 
The anarchist went on to brag about how effective the Starbucks protest was for their movement.
 
The damage was significant, yet Seattle Police (SPD) did not intervene.
 
“It was a temporary disruption that was handled and thankfully did not turn into a major issue,” a Seattle Police Department spokesperson told The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “As with any crime, incidents of vandalism are handled on a case-by-case basis. There are a multitude of factors that can determine when officers intervene. We are not at liberty to discuss our tactics as far as when officers will intervene.”
 
The group marched into downtown Seattle after their assault on Starbucks. Once there, they disrupted the annual Seattle Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
 
The author admits that activists “took over the stage soon after arriving and started throwing Christmas decorations to the ground and trashing the scenery.” There were a handful of activists who stayed on the stage, holding a banner reading “From Turtle Island to Gaza: Land Back.” Land Back refers to a movement of literal land reclamation to its so-called original stewards.
 
As activists chanted and gave speeches in front of a crowd angry that the ceremony was interrupted, an officer spotted suspect Tarik Aly Youssef, who is based in Vancouver, Washington.
 
On a TikTik account (@_thesphinx_) that appears to belong to the 25-year-old suspect, Youssef described himself as a transgender, polyamorous, pansexual, anti-capitalist, autistic Egyptian who is an “honorary member of Trantifa” (a name for transgender Antifa members). After The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH contacted Youssef via TikTok, the account’s videos were removed, and the account appears to be deleted.
 
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/united-nations-set-call-americans-reduce-meat-consumption
 
United Nations set to call on Americans to reduce meat consumption
 
A lead United Nations agency overseeing food and agriculture policy is expected to issue a road map in the coming weeks which will call on the West, including America, to dramatically reduce its meat consumption.
 
The UN's Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) will publish its so-called global food systems’ road map during the upcoming COP28 climate summit in Dubai which will kick off on Thursday and extend nearly two weeks until mid-December. FAO's first-of-its-kind document will recommend nations that "over-consume meat" to limit their consumption as part of a broader effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Bloomberg reported.
 
"The failure of leading meat and dairy companies to reduce emissions underlines the urgent need for more policy focus on the food and agriculture sector," Jeremy Coller, the chair and founder of the FAIRR Initiative, an investor network that works with financial institutions to promote climate-friendly agriculture worldwide, said in a recent statement.
 
In addition to issuing guidelines for reducing meat consumption in the West, the FAO is expected to highlight how farmers should adapt to "erratic weather" and tackle their emissions produced from food waste and use of fertilizer, according to Bloomberg. The recommendations, which the U.S. COP28 delegation may sign onto, will not be binding.
 
Overall, the road map will seek to guide policy on lowering the climate impact of the global agriculture industry, which has rarely received such attention at past UN climate conferences. Past COP summits have been far more keen to address emissions generated from the global power, transportation and manufacturing sectors.
The global food system — which includes land-use change, actual agricultural production, packaging and waste management — generates about 18 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, the equivalent of 34% of total worldwide emissions, according to a March 2021 study published in the Nature Food journal. FAO data indicates livestock alone is responsible for around 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
 
The UN has, for years, called for individuals to ditch animal-based diets, which it says "have a high impact on our planet." Instead, individuals should choose plant-based foods, according to the UN, which can reduce a person's annual carbon footprint by up to 2.1 tons.
 
In the U.S., though, agriculture alone generates about 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions, federal data shows. The American agriculture sector accounts for just 1.4% of global emissions and has implemented a wide range of solutions, making it the nation's lowest-emitting economic sector.