Economy 101: White House Over-Regulation

Many of you have heard me mention the “alphabet soup” of health care. When it comes to HMOs, MCOs, PPOs, ACOs, and HSAs, it’s an insider’s code that often determines the quality of care each of us will experience in various health care settings. As I have come to better understand politics, new acronyms have presented themselves. To compound the matter, one acronym can have several meanings in different political settings. If I say “NRA,” what is the first thing that comes to mind? More than likely, the National Rifle Association comes to mind for many of you; however, the saga of Herman Cain has ushered another NRA, the National Restaurant Association, into the political arena. Now, it appears there is yet another NRA with widespread impact on the political and economic frontiers of America.

The new “NRA” stands for Non-Resident Account. In a nutshell, the present White House administration and IRS are seeking to gather privately held bank account information for those individuals who are non-residents of the United States yet park their money in our financial institutions. It is the administration’s stance that gathering such information will be a benign process. In a recent CNBC article (http://www.cnbc.com/id/45755189), Alex Sanchez, President of the Florida Bankers Association, explained that this will be far from a benign matter:

“The Obama administration wants to collect and exchange [the NRA account holders’] information with their homeland governments. For safe democratic countries like the United Kingdom, Switzerland and others, it’s not a problem. But these account holders hail from Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela, and other South American countries. It doesn’t make sense. Mexico alone is a huge kidnapping and extortion country. We have $60-100b in NRA accounts in Florida alone.”

In other words, the naiveté of the White House will create a perilous situation for a great many people who feed our economy by placing their wealth in our banks. Folks, this approach to over-regulating and under-stimulating our economy will not have a happy ending.

A more reasonable approach centers on enticing the creation of even more NRAs within the US banking system. To be clear, we are not talking about terrorists-based banking accounts; but rather, the accounts of people who have made a way in life and are more at ease with their money in our banks. To chase away such patrons is both short-sighted and detrimental to our struggling economy. Then again, I have come to expect such impish behavior from this administration.

2012 affords us the opportunity to turn a new page for our government. We the People can make our voices heard loudly and clearly at the voting booth. I hope you will join me as we seek to Heal America!

Sincerely,

Marion D. Thorpe, Jr. MD, MPH

Chief Medical Officer (former)
State of Florida