Too Many Regulations!

Too Many Regulations!

Luke Phillips

The Obama Administration had a good year in regulations in 2015, and looks poised to have another good regulatory year in 2016, according to The Hill. In the two articles I just cited, there are no less than twenty major regulatory initiatives proposed by various elements of the Executive Branch. At least a dozen of them have actually been passed, and the others are in the works for the next couple of months of 2016. 

It’s important that in our ever-complexifying society, we have an energetic federal government capable of managing complicated issues and responding quickly to rapid changes. At the same time, how much power is too much? At what point does the Executive Branch, through its regulatory power, start stepping on the toes of the Legislative Branch and making de facto laws? How do you tame a regulatory, administrative leviathan that has gone beyond any means of control?

Moreover, a regulatory elite that tries to take on too many responsibilities winds up unable to responsibly carry out any of them- when government tries to do too many things, it winds up generally unable to do most of the things it set out to do. And, obviously, the complicated morass of overlapping regulatory standards stifles civil society and business and prevents them from flourishing to their fullest extent.

So there are at least three reasons to reform the federal bureaucracy in the United States today- restoring a proper balance of powers between the Executive and Legislative Branches, enhancing the effectiveness of the government, and promoting a healthier, more vibrant business environment and civil society. The two biggest obstacles to the cause of simplifying and downsizing the regulatory leviathan, meanwhile, are two types of inertia- institutional inertia, or the tendency of bureaucrats in DC to sit comfortably in their jobs without pressure to reform; and intellectual inertia, or the inability of our policymakers and other elites to conceive of other ways to manage our government and society beyond the old model we’ve been using for the last eighty-five years. We must overcome both to get to a better-managed, better-balanced, and more business-and-society-friendly federal government.

We’ll be posting more on regulations as the year drags on and the administration pushes for more regulations without pledging to peal back old, useless ones. Til then, dear reader, try not to break too many rules.