Federal government regulators issued 4,148 new rules in the 71,269-page Federal Register in 2003.
By contrast, Congress passed and the president signed into law 198 bills last year.
Each and every rule approved by the bureaucracy, and each and every law passed by Congress has consequences for the American people – financial consequences and restrictions upon our freedom.
Yet the American people are not engaged in the debate and there is little or no accountability for those imposing these consequences on us.
What are we talking about?
We’re talking about real money.
According to an analysis by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, regulatory costs represent twice the $375 billion budget deficit and more than the entire Canadian gross national product. They equal 7.9 percent of the U.S. gross national product of some $10,980 billion in 2003.
Federal regulatory costs of $869 billion, combined with on-budget outlays of $2,158 billion, bring the federal government’s share of the economy to some 27 percent.
To put this in perspective, regulatory costs exceed all corporate pretax profits, which were $665 billion 2002, they are greater than the estimated 2003 individual income tax outlays of $849 billion and much greater than corporate income taxes of $143 billion.
Still there’s no debate over these impositions on us. There’s no accountability. This is backdoor taxation without representation.
Didn’t we fight a war of independence over this kind of thing?
It gets worse, though. Federal agencies spent some $30.8 billion just administering and policing its regulations in 2003 – a 12.8 percent increase over the previous year. That brings the total regulatory burden to just under $900 billion.
Congress has abdicated its responsibility to the taxpayers by permitting agencies like the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency to make up their own rules and enforce them on the American people without any oversight, without any accountability, without any say.
At the very least, not that it would make much difference in the outcome, Congress should vote on these costly – in terms of dollars and freedom – rules and regulations before they take effect.
It’s unconstitutional to do otherwise. It is a violation of the spirit of Americanism to do otherwise. It is immoral to do otherwise.
Taxation and regulation are strangling production, innovation, research, social advancement and, yes, freedom.
When are the American people going to wake up? When are U.S. business leaders going to stand up and be counted?
Free enterprise? What’s that? It’s an endangered species. A real one, not the phony kind found by the Environmental Protection Agency. And this is one species U.S. Fish and Wildlife won’t lift a finger to preserve.
Socialism is alive and well in the United States of America. And it will take more than a tax cut to get the country back on track. We shouldn’t be talking about modest tax reductions. We ought to be talking about the elimination of taxes, altogether – particularly the income tax.
I know. I know. You’re saying, “Farah, you’re not being pragmatic. The only way to get there is through incrementalism.”
All I can tell you is that incrementalism is slowly taking this nation down the same path as the former Soviet Union. It’s time to reverse directions. It’s time for a U-turn. It’s time to get back on the freedom road.
We’re supposed to be a self-governing people. The reality is we have no say over many of the rules and regulations under which we are forced to live – rules and regulations that have real impact on our finances and our freedoms.
Guess what? That’s not going to change because we elect George Bush or John Kerry next month. Because the perpetual government pays no mind to whom we elect.
It’s time to return to the Constitution and uniquely American principles of limited government.
