How De-regulation Killed 9 Americans
De-regulation can be dangerous to your health
When incompetent leaders are elected to public office, we end up with absurd policy ideas like Trump’s “Two deregulations for every new regulation.” This isn’t serious policy-making; it’s a simplistic, almost childish notion that ignores the complexities of governance. Trump’s deregulation mantra might play well with billionaires and corporate interests eager to avoid oversight, but it’s a dangerous oversimplification. It promotes the far-right propaganda that all regulation is inherently bad, a view that’s not just flawed but reckless. Ideologies like this are fundamentally misguided because they reduce the intricate realities of life and policy to one-dimensional slogans. Real leadership requires more than catchy phrases; it requires an understanding of the delicate balance necessary to protect both economic growth and the public good. Read about Trump’s dangerous de-regulation of the food industry by clicking here.
Ronald Reagan was the king of deregulation. After winning in 1980, he declared war on the environment and consumers by systematically deregulating as much as he could. Resistance to deregulation was much stronger in the 1980s but substantially diminished under President Clinton, who shifted the Democratic Party towards the center-right. Arguably, Clinton was more Republican than Republicans in some cases (e.g., prison reform, immigration reform, welfare reform).
Watch Milton Friedman in the Youtube.com video below discuss morality and Capitalism - spoiler, Capitalism wins. Modern American Capitalism was invented in the 1950’s and implemented overtime, but especially through Ronald Reagan. Ayn Rand’s drivel was their moral compass.* Neoliberalism was a term recycled by Friedman to describe this new form of Capitalism: letting wealthy private citizens under corporate shields profit from assets; deregulation; massive tax breaks (“trickle-down economics”); globalization; free trade; monetarism; austerity; and reductions in non-military spending. It was during this time that shareholder value became the only metric that corporations needed to consider, environment and labor be damned. All of the issues about race, gender, sex, abortion, capital punishment were simple distractions to the economic revolution that was being implemented by the super rich.
Clinton kept the Democratic party alive by appealing to corporations and billionaires, but it came at the cost of widening the party’s chasm with the working class, who over time became enveloped in right-wing propaganda from billionaire Rupert Murdoch via Fox News along with that sociopathic slob, Rush Limbaugh. The working class had already fallen for Nixon’s propaganda, which divided them along lines of race, age, and war. Reagan was the divider-in-chief carving up Americans in so many segments, you could hardly keep track - the Christian Coalition, the Sage Brush rebels and Welfare queens, and so on, which cemented the distance of the working class from the only party that actually cared about them—the Democrats. The way things unfolded could not have been better for the billionaire class and corporations: the working class was voting in Republicans, and the Democrats were ignoring them.
The war on “big government” became more developed over time. Each subsequent president after Reagan continued with their own efforts at dismantling what had been built up since FDR, JFK, and LBJ. President Trump wants to be the best at de-regulation, and in order to be the best de-regulator - better than Reagan.
Here are some of the major deregulations that Trump accomplished in four years:
1. Energy Industry
Oil and Gas: Trump rolled back numerous regulations related to oil and gas extraction, including reducing restrictions on drilling in federal lands and offshore areas. The administration also relaxed rules on methane emissions, which had been aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas operations (Methane is 10-times more heat-generating than Carbon).
Coal Industry: The Trump administration repealed the Clean Power Plan, which was designed to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. It replaced this with the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, which gave states more leeway in regulating coal plants.
Renewable Energy: While the focus was on deregulating fossil fuels, some policies also affected renewable energy sectors by reducing incentives or shifting support away from renewable energy projects.
2. Financial Industry
Dodd-Frank Act: The Trump administration rolled back several provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which had been implemented after the 2008 financial crisis. This included easing restrictions on small and mid-sized banks, which reduced their regulatory burden.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB): The administration weakened the CFPB's enforcement powers and rolled back rules designed to protect consumers, such as payday lending regulations.
3. Environmental Protection
Clean Air and Water Regulations: Trump’s administration relaxed several regulations under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. This included rolling back the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which defined which bodies of water were federally protected.
Endangered Species Act: The administration made changes to the Endangered Species Act that made it easier to remove species from the protected list and allowed for economic considerations in the decision-making process.
4. Healthcare Industry
Affordable Care Act (ACA): While a full repeal of the ACA didn’t happen, the Trump administration made several efforts to undermine it. This included eliminating the individual mandate, which required people to have health insurance, and expanding the availability of short-term health insurance plans that did not comply with ACA standards.
Drug Pricing and Approval: Some regulations were relaxed to accelerate the approval process for new drugs, although this also included efforts to reduce drug prices by increasing competition.
5. Telecommunications and Technology
Net Neutrality: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under Trump's administration, repealed the net neutrality rules, which had required internet service providers to treat all data on the internet the same without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.
Privacy and Data Protection: The administration rolled back regulations that required internet service providers to obtain consumer consent before sharing their data with advertisers and other third parties.
6. Transportation
Automotive Industry: Trump rolled back fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, which had been set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve fuel economy.
Aviation: Some regulations on airlines were relaxed, particularly those related to safety inspections and consumer protections.
7. Labor and Employment
Workplace Safety: The administration reduced the enforcement of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations, including those related to reporting workplace injuries and illnesses.
Joint-Employer Rule: Changes were made to the joint-employer rule, which reduced the liability of companies for labor violations committed by their contractors or franchisees.
8. Education
For-Profit Colleges: The Trump administration relaxed regulations on for-profit colleges, including rules that required them to demonstrate that their graduates were able to repay their student loans.
Title IX Regulations: Changes were made to Title IX regulations concerning how schools handle sexual harassment and assault cases, which critics argued weakened protections for victims.
Notice the aviation industry safety standards? Think of Boeing and the 737 Max—two plane crashes, hundreds killed. Think of the two astronauts stranded in outer space due to failed Boeing machines, and the two whistleblowers who were silenced. All these problems are directly related to Trump’s careless, reckless acts of deregulation.
But what about the nine people Trump recently killed? Or was it murder? Maybe you’ve seen the headlines: Boar’s Head Plant Tied to 9 Listeria Deaths. Donald J. Trump deregulated the meatpacking industry in 2018, and here we are, six years later, with nine people dead after eating some sandwich meats. Who’s to blame for this? Boar’s Head? Maybe—maybe not. If there’s no federal regulation requiring certain standards in meatpacking, and people die from contaminated meat, well yes, you could sue Boar’s Head for wrongful death, and they probably will be found guilty—five years later—but that’s a civil suit. Isn’t it a crime that people were killed by eating meat?
The difference between being murdered and being killed is one of intent. Did Boar’s Head intend to kill anyone with their meat? The issue is one of commission versus omission. We have a bias that says murder has to be committed—murder isn’t something you do by omission. But is that really fair to the people who expected to eat a sandwich and then go on with their day, living another 10 to 50 years? I think not. I believe Boar’s Head is guilty of murder by omission or neglect.
Prior to Donald Trump’s presidency, Boar’s Head monitored their meat for safety. Listeria is something that companies specifically try to prevent because it’s so deadly. Is it fair to say that Boar’s Head acted reasonably because Trump told them they no longer needed to be regulated? These government regulations were in place for a very important reason—to protect consumers from death and disease caused by foodborne illnesses. When Trump carelessly deregulated the meat industry, it was obvious to any reasonable person that the food industry needed that regulation because it could not self-regulate. Most people read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in ninth grade. It was abundantly clear that food production was in desperate need of strong safety rules and monitoring. When Trump removed the regulations, he opened the door for Boar’s Head to do what corporations do—cut expenses to show larger profits, because in America, corporations are only beholden to their shareholders—a policy implemented under Reagan.
From Trump’s perspective at the time, he knew corporations wanted deregulation so they could save money and be more profitable for shareholders. He knew that food safety standards saved lives. He knew that people would die. He just didn’t care. So, yes, Trump did kill nine Americans by willful neglect, and like other times before, he did it for campaign donations. Is this murder? I think it is. Maybe our laws need to include omission as well as commission in how we look at liability and culpability.
Governing is serious business. We need to avoid electing greedy cretins to public office at all costs because it becomes immediately dangerous to public health.
Here’s the story of one man’s father who died from eating Trump’s tainted meats: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/08/22/listeria-outbreak-boars-head-deli-death-family-story/74890305007/
Article about Trump’s neglect during the pandemic lead to 400,000 Americans dying of Covid-19: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/new-revelations-emerge-on-how-donald-trump-killed-400000-coronavirus-pandemic/
*Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant who was traumatized as a child during the Russian revolution to oust Czar Nicholas and attempt to implement a Communist system which was never realized. Instead, Stalin ran the country under his own form of political-economy which was a failed enterprise propped up by violence and military spending. In the US, Rand wrote books glorifying free market Capitalism, inspired by a sociopath as the basis of her protagonist. Her ideology was propped up as an economic philosophy to promote Neoliberalism. To this day, many Conservatives still promote her extremist ideology. The titles speak for themselves: The Virtue of Selfishness.
One final point: There is no such thing as a Nobel Prize in Economics. Economics is not a science, it is an ideology. When economists say they received an Nobel prize, they are really receiving the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel sponsored by a Swiss bank, Sveriges Riksbank, presented by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. I suspect they did this so they could create a sense of validity to their economic ideologies.