And Obama wonders why the economy is struggling. The American Action Forum has released new analysis of the burden of new regulations under President Obama. It's most striking finding? The cost of added regulations under President Obama is now estimated to be $488 billion. "Based on data from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and regulations published in the Federal Register, the Administration has published more than $488 billion in regulatory costs since January 20, 2009 â $70 billion in 2012 alone," reads the analysis from AAF. "Ignoring all non-âmajorâ rules with costs in 2009, the regulatory tally still surpassed $61 billion. In 2010, counting only âmajorâ rules, the regulatory bill rose to $160 billion in lifetime costs. AAF began tracking every proposed and final rule in 2011. That year alone the Administration published more than $231 billion in regulatory costs. AAF reviewed 6,705 regulations in 2011 and has tracked more than 4,700 regulations to date in 2012." The most costly government agencies in 2012 alone are Health and Human Services (which has an estimated regulation burden of $16.7 billion), the Environmental Protection Agency ($12.1 billion), the Department of Energy ($10.6 billion), the Department of Justice ($6.9 billion), and the Securities and Exchange Commission ($6.2 billion). The other cost associated with these regulations is the man-hours that it would take to implement and enforce these new regulations. Under President Obama, this cost is at least 1.58 billion hours. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cost-regulations-under-obama-488-billion_652691.html