Hampered by Government

A friend shared a great article this AM on the over-regulation of Americans by government.  The article, "Why Do We Have Excess Regulation and Can We Get Rid of It?" by Veronique de Rugy is right on point.  

As I have blogged before, health care is saddled with over 122,000 federal regulations.  Last week, the federal government added 66 new federal regulations, for a total of 1700 additional pages being added to the Federal Register.  The week prior, there were 78 new federal regulations.  We are on track for 3,604 new regulations this year alone, adding 77,000 pages to the Federal Register.  Of these economically significant regulations, the compliance costs will average close to $10 billion.  And people wonder why it costs so much for health care, gasoline, food items, transportation and the list goes on.  

We keep adding federal regulations, but we rarely get rid of old regulations.  The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is responsible for reviewing unnecessary regulations; it has 50 people assigned to the Office and its budget has been continually reduced over the years.  Unfortunately, there is no end in sight as federal government agencies are motivated to create more regulation.  

What could be labeled "poetic justice" is that over regulation through procurement intervention contributed to the failure of the Health.gov website.  As Ann Althouse of the University of Wisconsin's School of Law writes, "government is hampered by government."  They can't even get out of their own way but still don't get the message of how much the government harms businesses throughout the US through its over-regulation.  

A very apropos quote by H.L. Mencken is "The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic." Have a good day.