80,000 New Rules and Regulations?

Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore have higher incomes per capita and lower unemployment rates than we have in the United States. Yet each of these countries is able to function with far fewer regulations, lower taxes and smaller government. Richard W. Rahn, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, points out in the Washington Times, that compared to the U.S., these countries also enjoy less crime, higher life expectancies and cleaner environments.

Under the Obama administration, new regulations have reached record highs. As Richard Rahn notes, “Governments create impediments on job creation by doing such things as increasing taxes on labor, raising minimum wages above the full employment level, and increasing the number of nonproductive regulations. Read more from Richard here:

Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute produces an annual report detailing the rise of regulations. His new CEI report, “Ten Thousand Commandments,” shows that under Mr. Obama, new regulations have reached a record high, and are now running about 60 percent more numerous per year than at the end of the Reagan administration. Even worse is the growth in the average private and public cost of the regulations and the decline in serious cost-benefit analysis before the regulations are promulgated.

There is no logical reason why the number of new regulations should grow at increasing rates each year. Most people and most businesses already think they are greatly overregulated. It is as though Moses came down the mountain with 10 rules the first year, 12 additional ones the next year, 15 the next, and so on. Would we have been better off if he had? Can you even remember the first Ten Commandments from Moses, let alone the approximately 80,000 new rules the Obama administration came up with each of the past few years?