A "No Win" Situation For Uncle Sam

The other day I saw a brief clip on the news about the Toyota vehicle problems. Now, I have to admit, I haven't followed all of this closely, rather a bit casually, but the clip featured a Republican congressman whose name and state escape me. He said he wanted "an investigation of the government," because the problems at Toyota date back to 2003, if I caught his words properly, and that government regulators should have acted. Okay, with all of the recent reports about Toyota, I'd say we'd pretty much all agree with the guy, BUT the problem I have is, we've had conservatives (mainly Republicans) beating up on government for REGULATING. Now that failure to regulate has come to the fore again, we have a Republican congressman saying that the problem is, that Uncle Sam didn't regulate enough. To be fair, the congressman said there were laws/rules on the books about the auto industry that weren't enforced, so he wasn't crying for new laws or regulations.

If you notice the time period, going back to 2003, that was when George W. Bush was president. We heard back then how government was the enemy, that regulations stifle innovation and business, etc. The Bush Administration was just doing what they believed about enforcing regulations...not much or nothing! So Congressman, you can't have this both ways. Remember the lax oversight of the financial industry by the same administration?

WORD HISTORY:
Regulate-This word seems to have come into English usage during the first half of the 1600s. It traces back to Latin "regula," which meant "rule," which goes back to the Proto Indo European base "reg," which meant "to move in a straight line, to guide or to direct." From Latin "regula," developed "regulare," which meant "to direct, to rule/control." The participle form of this verb was "regulatus," which developed into English "regulate." The noun form, "regulation," came a few decades later, seemingly based upon "regulator," which developed a few years before.