Carly Fiorina’s Truthiness
Russ Choma wrote an excellent article on Carly Fiorina’s habit of making precise claims which turn out to be false.
I had one comment
Excellent article, but you missed one. “Ronald Reagan got rid of the the 55 mph national speed limit, he deregulated trucking and the airlines, that’s the last time it happened.” is false. Trucking and airlines were deregulated by Carter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_trucking_industry_in_the_United_States
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Deregulation[edit]
The Motor Carrier Act of *1980* partially deregulated the trucking industry, dramatically increasing the number of trucking companies in operation.[17] … The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 *established*a federal minimum for truck weight limits, ”
Asterisks mine. Note deregulation under Carter. The only reference to the Reagan years s the reference to the introduction of a new federal regulation.
Airlines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act
“The Airline Deregulation Act is a 1978 United States federal law intended to remove government control over fares, routes and market entry (of new airlines) fromcommercial aviation.”
It may be GOP dogma that Reagan was (among many other things) the great deregulator. However, in actual US history Carter deregulated more than Reagan.
Jimmy Carter signed the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 in July, with Reagan coming in office just 6 months later so by the time any effects of the law were apparent, it was under the Reagan Presidency.
Reagan did sign H.R. 5930 in 1982 which was a fairly minor deregulation of the airline industry, interestingly it allowed safety investigations to only publish selected portions of transcripts from the “black box” recordings after an airline crash.
There was also “H.R.3929 – Trucking Deregulation Act of 1985” which failed to pass into law (but the thought was there) and “H.R.3222 – National Motor Carrier Productivity and Safety Improvement Act of 1985” which also failed to pass.
There’s some evidence that Reagan attempted to cut the budget of the Interstate Commerce Commission but was thwarted on this as well, eventually they passed Senate Joint Resolution 96 which forced Reagan to make a speech “Proclamation 5624 — Interstate Commerce Commission Day, April 3, 1987” on the 100th anniversary of the ICC.
It was Paul Volcker who’s recommendations to Carter which started the deregulation. Which lead to the avalanche of deregulation under Reagan.
@Beene What avalanche of deregulation under Reagan ? I can think of 2 — raising the speed limit to 65 mph and deregulation of Savings and Loans (recall how that worked out).
I didn’t read anything about Volcker and dereguation at the time. The person (other than Carter) discussed in the press was Alfred Kahn . I am sure Volcker supported deregulation of trucking and airlines, but I don’t think he was such an important political player. Carter signed the Airline deregulation bill in 1978. He nominated Volcker in 1979. *After* being appointed Fed chairman Volcker was very powerful. Before that he wasn’t even very well known.
I note that when Carter was inaugurated the price of US extracted Petroleum was regulated (with a maximum price which therefore rewarded consumption). Carter and the huge Democratic majority in congress ended this price control (which had been created by Ford and a congress with a large Democratic majority) . This was not a windfall for Oil companies as the bill Carter signed also included a windfall profits tax.
Notably deregulation consisted of changes in laws, that is in bills passed by Congress. It is important that the period of deregulation is also the period of huge gigantic Democratic majorities. The Democratic party is the relatively pro-market party.
I was quoting from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307379051?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage
I was quoting from 13 Bankers by S Johnson @ J Kwak
The democratic party has adopted the Republican parties possessions, forcing the republican’s to more extreme right over the past 45 years.
I see. Thanks for the very quick reply (I was amazed to find that 2 comments + my comment = 5 in while I was FREDing for a bit).
I have just read the amazon.com blurb. From it I infer that Johnson and Kwak focus on banking. The Reagan deregulation which I recalled was deregulation of S&Ls (for any kids who might be reading they are a kind of small bank which had their own separate deposit insurance (the FSLIC) and regulator).
Deregulation of banks (and S&Ls and investment banks) was quite different from deregulation of airlines and trucking. The old regulation of airlines was explicitly designed to protect them from competition with each other (it was justified as infant industry protection) deregulation was very bad for airlines. The regulation of trucking wasn’t explicitly designed to help incumbent trucking firms but had evolved to serve them as an interest group — deregulation was very bad for them.
In contrast the old regulation of banks was designed to prevent them from taking risks on a heads they win tails the FDIC (or FSLIC) loses. They wanted deregulation and celebrated it. It was bad for banks in the medium run, but was good for bankers who kept the bonuses they paid themselves for gambling and, for a time, winning.
I recall the avalanche of deregulation occuring under Clinton with bills largely written by Phil Gramm. Clinton was strongly advised to deregulate banks by Treasury Secretary Larry Summers (to whom I owe a debt which I can never repay) and (with less influence but considerable historical data and enthusiastic eloquence) deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for policy analysis Brad DeLong (to whom I owe another debt which I can never repay) .
It didn’t work out well (I am not the only entity who ended up with debts which we couldn’t repay).
All that has gone wrong can be linked to recommendation of the federal reserve bank of NY. Thou Clinton and Gramm polished off (Glass Steagall bill) the buffer between saving banks and commercial banks formally. As Lambert Strether informed me that the fed already damaged the separation by redefining words of the bill some time in 89(?).
One of the more important acts was the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978, which allowed the substitution of Nat Gas for oil, which was important in putting pressure on OPEC.