Deregulation of the airlines, railways, trucking, energy, and telecommunications industries have all provided significant benefits to consumers and the economy as a whole. These efforts all had some degree of bipartisan support.
We reject the current fad of attempting to regulate private firms by imposing Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) obligations on the Boards of Directors of private sector firms. We also reject regulations requiring that these Boards include representatives of various “stake holders” such as employees or public interest groups. If we want to influence the behavior of private sector firms the most efficient way of accomplishing this objective is through taxation or regulation. This allows the private sector to respond by maximizing shareholder value subject to the constraints and incentives that the public sector establishes.
The remainder of this Policy Position focuses on two areas of the Regulation/Deregulation debate: 1) Regulation and the Financial Markets and 2) Regulation and Consumer Protection. We recognize that regulation is a much broader topic but these two issues are the most controversial ones at the moment.
Go to Part 1) Regulation and Financial Markets