New regs

Picture a room in a typical town where the local officials are gathered to write regulations concerning construction. Should we use 2 by 6’s or 2 by 8’s and the answer, let’s go with the 8’s. Should we use 8 inch blocks or 10 inch blocks, let’s go with the 10. Get the picture! Since there is no one in the room representing industry the tendency is to play it safe and go with the more secure. Whenever regulations are prescribed it is best to have both sides represented but all too often that does not happen in government. The pace of agencies issuing new rules and regulations has hit a record high under President Obama, whose administration’s rules have filled 468,500 pages in theFederal Register. And, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the president is poised to unleash another 2,375 new rules on American businesses without first giving Congress an up or down vote. I have no idea what all these new rules entail but my guess is that some are either unnecessary or excessive. The government needs to protect the citizen’s safety but should not shut down business in the process. It is well known that when you lower the speed limit you save lives but we do not propose a 10 mile per hour limit because that would be counter-productive. For those whose lives were saved it would be a good law but the price to the rest of society would be prohibitive.