Regulatory Oppression

Do you think there is too little or too much regulation? Though the appropriate amount of regulation may be in the eye of the beholder, we do have objective evidence of the growth of federal regulation.

The Annual Regulators' Budget Report by Susan Dudley of George Mason University's Mercatus Center and Melinda Warren of Washington University's eidenbaum Center has just been released.

Their study shows both the cost and number of regulators continues growing far faster than inflation and population, which means in real terms we are becoming an increasingly regulated people. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the most of federal regulation has gone from $2.3 billion in 1960 to $38.9 billion expected in this next fiscal year. This is a greater than fourteenfold increase. The number of regulators has grown from 57,000 in 1960 to more than 240,000.