Regular, Irregular and Ultra-regular Regulations

James Gattuso

Thanks to James Gattuso, of The Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal, for highlighting the issue of the Obama Administrations' plans for new regulations to be issued by the Federal Agencies. Missed it? Don't feel bad, the release was strategically timed for the Friday before Thanksgiving on November 23rd, when most of us had our attention focused elsewhere. Turns out that this has been the pattern  for such releases over the past several years. There is only one reason for such timing, and that is NOT to maximize public exposure. You would hide this lantern under a bushel basket too if you were announcing over 2,000 new regulations in process, with over 144 of these bad boys projected to cost at least $100 million. Click  HERE to read Gattuso's article, but for a real trip through the looking glass click again HERE for a look at the Current Regulatory Plan and the Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, (sic)  which will allow you to track regulation activity back to the specific federal agency of the 50 or so that are listed. Content Warning! this is not for the faint of heart.

Charles Murray

Charles Murray, writing in the Sixtieth Anniversary Issue  of National Review, in an article entitled, The Regulators' Yoke, reviews the growth of federal regulations over the past sixty years, but, perhaps most troubling, perhaps is the extent to which so much of the federal government now acts independently.

"And so, we now live in a world in which Congress passes laws with grandiose goals, loosely defined  and delegates responsibility for interpreting those goals exclusively to regulatory agencies that have no accountability to the citizenry and only limited accountability to the president of the United States.

There's much more, but it amounts to this: Regulatory agencies, or the regulatory divisions within cabinet agencies, operate as self-contained entities that create de-facto laws that Congress would never  have passed on an up or down vote. They then act as both police and judge in enforcing the laws they have created."

In a nutshell:

"American government isn't supposed to work this way"  

Charles Murray's new book, By the People, provides a much more thorough analysis of the threat to individual liberty stemming from the consuming power of the federal government. Fortunately, Murray also sees a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

There is of, course, at least one other aspect to this unbridled growth of governmental control, and that is, what else?, the money. Federal spending is out of control, with the federal deficit fast approaching $19 Trillion. We are now less than a year away from the next presidential election and amid all the blather we have already been subjected to by erstwhile candidates, there has been precious little attention focused on the deficit or fiscal concerns, and that's among the Republicans. On the other side, front-runner, Hillary, wants to add even more fuel to the fire with a program of free college tuition for all.

When the family credit cards and home equity loans max out, regular people must make tough decisions, the first of which is cut spending. What does Washington know that we don't?