Free trade agreements with Korea and Japan
Australia is already leading by example, inking job-creating free trade agreements with Korea and Japan. Abbott took office just 14 months ago. Since then, Australia—a country of fewer than 24 million—has created 110,000 net new jobs. Meanwhile, gross domestic product (GDP) has grown at an annualized rate exceeding three percent.
While the Abbott government actively pursues free trade, the Obama administration has dragged its feet. It blocked approval of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) negotiated in 2007 with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, then spent nearly four years renegotiating them. It has also dragged out negotiations for Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic FTAs, and made no attempt to push an FTA for Brazil. Its support of the pro-market “Pacific Alliance” trade area of Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama and Peru has been lukewarm at best.
On the home front, President Obama has followed the EU mega-welfare-state model, ramped up government spending, and added onerous layers of regulation. In the latter area, the U.S. president has far outdone the Europeans.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute reports that the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)—the "codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the departments and agencies of the Federal Government"—filled 175,496 pages by the end of 2013. In Brussels, the “Acquis”—the European Union’s rough equivalent to the CFR—tops out at roughly 170,000 pages.
What’s worse, under Obama the CFR has been growing. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 63 Federal departments, agencies and commissions issued 3,659 rules last year, yet Congress passed and the President signed just 72 laws. That’s a ratio of 51 new regulations for every new law! Overall, in his first five years in office President Obama added 17,522 pages of regulations to the CFR, an 11 percent increase in the size of the regulatory state.
