Memo: Voters Support Strong Regulations that Protect the Public
By Todd Phillips and Ethan Winter
Introduction
President-elect Joe Biden can reshape every environmental, health, safety, and economic protection that safeguards the American public. Past administrations have often opted to regulate in a very conservative manner. This is, in part, because economists could not show that quantified benefits “justified” the quantified costs and because industry lobbyists have misleadingly portrayed the public as being against regulations. With past administrations reluctant to strongly defend regulations, this institution has been left vulnerable to neglect as well as targeted political attacks. Decades of shrinking budgets and a failure by Congress to update statutory authorities have “hollowed out” and weakened the agencies charged with implementing regulations. The task of rebuilding these agencies will be made even harder by the fact that many of the important safeguards they have issued were rolled back or repealed in recent years.
As part of a survey fielded at the end of the September through early October, 2020, Data for Progress sought to gauge attitudes among likely voters about the regulatory process, including their views on regulation, the development of regulations, aspects of economic analysis, and the interagency review process. We found that likely voters have generally positive feelings towards regulations.
What this polling shows is that, across the board, likely voters from both parties want strong, progressive regulatory protections that experts develop working in consultation with affected communities. These findings suggest that policymakers are consistently misreading the electorate’s sentiment towards regulations and that the attempts by regulated corporations to malign regulations have largely failed.
