Reward Your Friends

Bush may be many things, but nobody can ever accuse him of not remembering to help those who helped him get where he is:

White House to Launch Push For Pro-Business Regulation

By JOHN D. MCKINNON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 9, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is expected to launch a push for business-friendly regulation, possibly including streamlined and more flexible pollution standards, chemical-handling rules, and workers' medical-leave protections.

The stated aim is to improve the overall climate for U.S. manufacturing, a sector hammered by recession and overseas competition during much of President Bush's first term.

But Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a pro-consumer group that monitors the White House Office of Management and Budget, called the effort a new assault on anticompetitive rules that amounts to rewarding Mr. Bush's political supporters in the business world.

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