Government Regulations Cost Michigan Millions

The unelected bureaucrats of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have decided in their infinite wisdom that they will put in place new federal laws regulating acceptable levels of ground-level ozone. This move will put 21 Michigan counties in noncompliance and cost businesses and residents millions of dollars to improve air quality.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackass in a press release Thursday said that "smog dirties our air, clouds our cities and drives up our health care costs across the country." Dirty air, clouds, and an occasional cough are indeed bad things, but so is being unemployed, sucking down welfare, and having nothing to do every day but agonize why no one will give you a job. Think about it- in a perfect world, you could have everything, but in this world, if you had to trade having a job, a paycheck, a house, cars, and a secure future for your children in a cloudy world with an occasional cough because of bad air, or you could be unemployed, losing your house, have no security, but be breathing nice clean air, which would you choose?

Choices matter. And it is wrong that it is unelected bureaucrats who are making these choices for our lives. Our elected officials should be making these decisions, and then we could hold them accountable for the resulting loss of jobs and income. But we are not living in a republic any more, or even a democracy, but increasingly a tyranny of unelected czars and bureaucrats headed by one person intent on gaining state control over every aspect of our lives.

The EPA estimates that implementing the changes would cost between $19 billion and $90 billion. The health benefits could save between $13 billion and $100 billion, it said. There are no other analysis done, no auditing by any other agency, and little data to back up those claims. I bet it'll cost more like $90 billion, and save more like $13 billion in health care costs, meaning it better be worth it to suck another $77 billion out of taxpayers pockets.

If a county is not in compliance with these arbitrary standards established by unelected bureaucrats, the government will grow angry and punish its puny subjects by reducing their road funding and putting in place additional regulations in retribution. For Michigan, already struggling under years Democratic rule marked by high taxes and regulation, any added burden on development will be crushing.

Information for this story was pulled from this article from the Detroit News.