Saturday, February 3, 2024

Regulations


Astonishing economic numbers. The U.S. economy grew 3.1 percent over the past year while adding another 2.7 million jobs, and with core inflation moving back down toward the pre-pandemic benchmark. This is beyond any estimate. Even Kudlow was impressed. Kudlow said on Fox Business Network that "nobody got 2023 right," adding that the mismatch between predictions and what actually happened is a question forecasters and economists will have to look into. Bidenomics!

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A rocket designed to carry a nuclear warhead was found in the garage of a home in Bellevue, a city across Lake Washington from Seattle

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Assisting migrant families and unaccompanied children refugees has cost the federal government over $20 billion during the past two fiscal years, according to a new report. Off-the-books costs are, of course, not known

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Regulations

Expanding government activity is a Constitutional question, an economic question, a business question. It is also a practical question: how can the average government official manage the complexity and how can the average citizen keep up?

From an article by Wenzel on Federal rules and regulations:

"The sheer numbers are staggering, as the regulatory factory on the Potomac spews negative externalities, polluting the economy. 2023 closed with 90,402 pages of rules and regulations published in the Federal Register — you read that right… more than ninety thousand pages of rules. The Biden administration finished the year with the second-longest collection of all time. President Obama holds the record at 95,894, and President Biden just displaced President Trump’s record of 86,356 pages in 2020. To achieve this feat, the Biden administration beat its own record of 79,856 pages in 2022.

But the numbers are not the only challenge. Indeed, regulatory watchers find themselves playing whack-a-mole with the variety of rules and regulatory agencies. It is now a sadly quaint notion that Congress, and only Congress, makes the laws. The language of the Constitution is unambiguous, and it’s right there at the beginning, just after the Preamble, in Article 1, Section 1: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States” (emphasis added). Alas, this crystal-clear language, and the non-delegation doctrine which flows from it, are routinely ignored. Instead, we see an alphabet soup of rule-making agencies."

Behind all this is the unasked question: how much fortitude is required in public economic life and when do citizens just despair and surrender?

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