A sobering new report on the cost and scope of federal regulations puts the price of the rules at $1.88 trillion annually, a "hidden tax" of $14,976 on every single household, or about 29 percent of an average American's income.
In "Ten Thousand Commandments," the Competitive Enterprise Institute also reveals that regulations far more than laws are how the administration rules the land. While Congress, well known recently for doing little, passed 224 new laws last year, federal agencies issued 3,554 new regulations, or 16 per law.
Author Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., CEI vice president for policy, spread the blame for overregulation around, but said that congressional inactivity is partly at fault and he called for reform that would have Congress oversee and even vote on new burdensome regulations.
"Congressional rather than agency approval of regulations and regulatory costs should be the goal of reform. When Congress ensures transparency and disclosure and finally assumes responsibility for the growth of the regulatory state, the resulting system will be one that is fairer and more accountable to voters," he said in the report.
The study, which he concedes doesn't capture all the costs of regulations on homes and businesses, also reveals that while President Obama uses regulations heavily, so did former President George W. Bush. Bush used them after 9/11 and Obama has on Obamacare and the environment.
Highlights pulled directly from Crews' report:
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