Americans Beg for Mercy in Front of Unelected Bureaucrats

Quote of the Day: "A note to social engineers of all parties: If you have to protect 3 million people from a brand-new law, it probably wasn’t very well written in the first place." - John Sununu

Did you know that unelected bureaucrats are SELECTIVELY waiving some businesses from following the requirements of Obamacare?

Government by bureaucracy is one of the primary threats to liberty and prosperity. That is why the Write the Laws Act is part of the Downsize DC Agenda.

It is also why I wrote this letter to my Representative and Senators, and encourage you to do the same . . .

I understand that as long as The State exists, citizens will be subject to random judgment calls even by well-meaning government employees. I understand that life can be unfair.

But I was disturbed and angry when I read this article by John Sununu, a former U.S. Senator from New Hampshire: http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-25/bostonglobe/29813533_1_waiver-program-special-treatment-obamacare

According to Sununu . . .

* Department of Health and Human Services regulators had issued waivers exempting 1,400 companies from the harsh effects of Obamacare
* Whereas other companies were denied these exemptions, at the cost of some 150,000 jobs

Not even the Obamacare law granted HHS bureaucrats this arbitrary power. But, in the culture of Washington, D.C., they might plausibly say that the Obamacare law didn't PREVENT them from using this power.

In D.C....

* Elected members of Congress create "laws" which are frequently more or less guidelines
* Unelected bureaucrats enforce, or don't enforce, these "laws" as they see fit, and create regulations on their own

Should honest small business owners be subject to the arbitrary rules of unelected bureaucrats?

Or should Congress write ALL the rules we must live under, and limit the discretion of bureaucrats?

The Write the Laws Act requires that CONGRESS...

* Write all the rules
* Read all the rules
* Debate all the rules
* And vote into law all of the rules that you are required to obey

If you say that you don't have "time" to do all this, then THAT proves to me that you have very little knowledge or expertise in the industry you want to regulate.

Why, then, should I believe that YOU have sufficient knowledge to hire the best unelected "experts" to regulate MY life?

I object, fervently, to the idea that the government should regulate industry, and then dispense special exemptions when it pleases. That is the moral equivalent of begging a King for mercy.

And, I object, vehemently, to the idea that Congress can grant regulatory, coercive powers to unelected bureaucrats in the Executive Branch.

If Congress thinks it can control the economy or regulate my life, then at least it should be honest about it. Write the regulations yourself; as the Constitution requires. Giving broad powers and wide discretion to unelected bureaucrats is the equivalent of giving absolute power to a monarch with whom citizens must beg for mercy or special privilege.

Bureaucratic law-making violates the principles this Republic was founded upon. Repeal Obamacare, and pass the Write the Laws Act!

END LETTER

You can send your letter using DownsizeDC.org's Educate the Powerful System.

Are your friends aware that there's a way to prevent government by special favors -- favors such as these Obamacare waivers? Have they heard of the Write the Laws Act? Please tell them! Share this on Facebook and Twitter: http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/americans-beg-for-mercy-in-front-of-unelected-bureaucrats

James Wilson
Policy Research Director
DownsizeDC.org

The $13,000 Tax

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/the-hidden-13-000-tax

Quote of the Day: Do not let these 545 people (Congress, President, and Supreme Court) shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it. . . . Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. - Charley Reese

Subject: Who's responsible for the $13,000 tax?

Every year, politicians and activists unveil plans to make taxes more simple and fair, but they never say anything about the worst tax of all.

It's a tax that Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates will cost $1.3 trillion this year, which is about $13,000 for the average American family.

• Nobody ever gets a refund.


• It doesn't take into account one's ability to pay.


• It doesn't increase revenue or decrease the deficit; actually, it increases deficits by depressing the economy.

You might not have heard about it. The tax is hidden. Not everyone pays it the same way:

• Everyone pays at least some of it through higher prices on goods and services


• Some, like small business owners, pay it through reduced profits and even bankruptcy


• Others pay it through depressed wages or unemployment


• We may even pay it through higher state and local taxes, or reduced state and local services

It's the Regulation Tax, the cost of complying with federal regulations and unfunded mandates. Each regulation will cost an affected business some money, and that will translate into reduced profits, higher prices, or both. And so everybody pays: owner, employee, customer.

And contrary to popular belief, regulations are almost always unnecessary. A free market would have laws against violence, fraud, and theft. What it wouldn't have is needless government intervention. In a free market, producers would be forced to serve the public interest by delivering safe, quality goods at ever-lower prices.

• If they cheat workers and customers through fraud, they would be prosecuted.


• If they do harm through sloppiness and negligence, they could be sued.


• If they deliver poor quality, they will deservingly lose business.

In a free market, firms have built-in incentives to provide safe working conditions and safe, quality goods and services. The federal government makes this difficult by imposing one-size-fits-all regulations - and businesses are still usually liable for accidents and mistakes that escape regulatory supervision. So at best, regulations dictate what businesses would have done anyway; at worst they impose additional, unnecessary, and costly restrictions and burdens that actually make it harder to deliver safe, quality goods and services.

So who's to blame for the Regulation Tax? Consider . . .

• By the end 2007, 188 bills passed both houses of Congress and were signed into law


• In comparison, unelected bureaucrats in federal agencies issued 3,595 "final rules" - regulations with the force of law


• 157 of these regulations were "economically significant" - costing $100 million or more each


• 757 regulations affecting small business were being considered
  
  (Source: Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr., Competitive Enterprise Institute)

Even so, it is Congress, not the Bureaucracy, that is to blame for the Regulation Tax.

• Congress passes the spending bills which fund the regulatory agencies, and Congress is therefore responsible for the results


• It is wrong for the American people to suffer taxation, or regulation, without representation


• Congress unconstitutionally delegates law-making power to the bureaucrats, and Congress must take that power back

Downsize DC's Write the Laws Act would force every regulation to be passed in Congress as a bill. When the WTLA passes,

• The people will have been represented when regulations are passed and implemented


• Time constraints will mean fewer regulations will be proposed, and only those universally agreed to as necessary will pass


• Businesses will be freed to become more efficient in serving the public


• Our Regulation Tax will go down sharply

Use our quick and easy Educate the Powerful System to tell your Congressional employees to introduce and pass DownsizeDC.org's "Write the Laws Act."

Use your personal comments to tell them that . . .

• Regulations will cost American families $13,000 this year


• Regulations are laws, and there should be no "legislation without representation"


• Most regulations impose undue burdens on business and do not protect the public

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org

Agency Madness

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/agency-madness

Quote of the Day: "Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work." - Albert Einstein

Subject: Agency Madness

Here are three recent items with something in common . . .

#1: FDA experts have voted to ban the drugs Serevent and Foradil for asthma patients. The vote isn't binding, but the FDA generally follows such recommendations. And yet . . .

• One-third of these experts disagreed with banning these drugs for adult patients
• The leading rationale was that many patients used them incorrectly by not pairing them with a steroid. But what about patients who took the drugs responsibly and correctly?
• The total cost of these drugs plus steroids is still cheaper than that of two other asthma drugs, Advair and Symbicort, which were approved.

In other words, the panel voted to limit the clinical options of doctors and increase the costs for patients.

Even so, it could have been worse. Some FDA safety experts wanted to ban all four drugs because they may cause one death in "somewhere between 700 and 4,000 patients."

They apparently didn't listen to Dr. Richard Gower, President of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, who said, "We live in an imperfect world. All drugs have potential benefits and side effects."

#2: The FDA has also banned the use of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) inhalers (MDIs) beginning this year. CFC products are believed to cause ozone depletion, and most of them were banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol of 1987. However,

• Medically essential products, such as CFC MDIs, have been exempt
• Medical products account for, at most, 0.5% of CFC consumption, meaning the ban is not environmentally necessary.
• Replacement inhalers (HFAs) are still patent-protected, and no generics can be made until 2010. HFA MDIs are 2-3 times the price of CFC MDIs, and require more diligence to clean and maintain. The poor, who are already more likely to suffer asthma, are paying a tax on their health for the sake of a symbolic environmental gesture.
• There is no medical justification for banning CFC MDI's.
  

#3: The TSA's new proposed "Large Aircraft Security Program" (LASP) could ruin the general aviation industry.

• The same one-size-fits-all regulations will apply to both passenger airliners and non-commercial, business-owned jets that are used to move cargo and personnel. For instance, the "no-fly" list and Air Marshall provisions will apply to business planes even though the pilots usually know everyone on board personally.
• The definition of "large aircraft" is arbitrary, applying both to planes as small as 12,500 pounds and to 747's ten times that weight.
• Items that are prohibited in passenger jets will also be banned to employees in these smaller business planes, even if they are needed for their work. (Just think of what that will do to business efficiency in this time of recession.)
• Airplane owners will be forced to pay, at their own expense, for audits of their safety compliance. The audits won't even be done by government inspectors, but by private consultants.
• These rules can potentially expand to all aircraft and all airports.

The above three items are just a few examples of what federal regulatory agencies do to us, every day. They pass regulations and enforce policies that reduce our choices and increase our costs. While their actions often go unreported or are buried in newspapers, they profoundly affect large segments of our population and of our economy. Just ask asthma sufferers. Or the aviation industry.

All of this is done with little or no Congressional oversight. Instead, Congress passes general laws and expects regulatory agencies to "sweat the details." People have to obey agency dictates, even though they're created willy-nilly without any elected representation.

Downsize DC's Write the Laws Act (WTLA) will limit the authority of these agencies. Congress will be responsible for writing every law and regulation, using whatever expert advice they feel they need. But they must not delegate the rule-making power to others, they must sweat the details themselves.

Tell your Representative and your two Senators to introduce and pass DownsizeDC.org's Write the Laws Act. Cut and paste the three examples in this Dispatch into your personal comments. Use our quick and easy Educate the Powerful System to send your message.

Thank-you for being part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Mad Cow or Mad Bureaucrat

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/mad+cow+or+mad+bureaucrat

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"The consequences of USDA - and now the courts - denying voluntary BSE testing effectively shield the less innovative, less nimble and less responsive beef processors from the competitive capacity of cutting-edge beef processors like Creekstone." - Blll Bullard

SUBJECT: The Cure For Mad Bureaucrat Disease

Of the 35 million cattle slaughtered each year, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) tests about 1% for BSE, or Mad Cow Disease. But Creekstone Farms wants to test 100% of the cattle they process, at their own expense.

The USDA won't let them, and the USDA's rule has been backed by the federal courts. You see, if Creekstone tests all its beef and boasts of it in its marketing, their larger competitors could feel obliged to do the same, and this additional expense may lower their profit margins or raise the price of beef.

Just three cases of Mad Cow disease have ever been discovered in the U.S. You are far more likely to choke to death on a piece of steak than eat any Mad Cow meat. If Creekstone wants to sell higher-priced meat to pay for a seemingly unnecessary test, that does not mean their competitors will have to follow suit. Their untested meat would have the advantage of a lower price. The public should choose for themselves whether they want 100% protection from the rare Mad Cow Disease, or a lower price.

Also, export markets like Japan and South Korea are very concerened about Mad Cow Disease. Creekstone wants to do these tests mainly to cater to them. By preventing Creekstone from testing for BSE in all its cattle, the USDA is:

* preventing a safer product from entering the market, undermining the alleged rationale for government regulation and control of industry.
* denying Americans the opportunity to decide for themselves, in the "land of the free."
* hurting America's trade balance.

Imagine Congress passing a law that prevents a private business from voluntarily making its product safer than government standards, in order to protect Big Business.

The uproar would be incredible.

But Congress did NOT pass a law against Mad Cow testing. The USDA made it up on its own own.

To be more precise, Congress did pass a law back in 1913, called the Virus-Serum-Toxin Act. It was designed to prevent the sale of dangerous or ineffective animal medicines. But this Act and subsequent revisions gave the USDA power to make both broader policies and more specific regulations. Even though testing for the incurable BSE doesn't seem to fall within the intent of this Act, the USDA has been given very broad discretion. In short, Congress never said private businesses can't test for BSE.

But the USDA did.

When Congress delegates lawmaking to the Executive Branch, the result is Mad Bureaucrat Disease; insane regulations that sacrifice freedom and the public good for the interests of a few powerful corporate lobbyists.

But DownsizeDC.org has the cure for Mad Bureaucrat Disease.

The Write the Laws Act would force Congress to write specific legislation, with no details left to the bureaucrats. Yes, Congress may need experts to advise them in drafting the rules and regulations. But Congress still has an obligation to write the rules, read the rules, debate the rules, and vote the rules into law. That's because Congress is ultimately accountable to the people, and bureaucrats are not. The Write the Laws Act would prevent an out-of-control bureaucracy from doing something so mad as banning Mad Cow testing.

Tell Congress to introduce and pass the Write the Laws Act. In your personal comments, tell them about the USDA's ban on Mad Cow testing, and ask them to write legislation overturning this ban. Tell them unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to make laws. Tell them there should be no "legislation without representation." You can do so here.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

The AMA Writes the Laws

QUOTES OF THE DAY:

"It would be unconstitutional for Congress to create a statute stating that it was a crime to engage in conduct forbidden by the AMA, or by particular HCBPs, or by the health care industry as a whole. This is because neither the AMA, nor the HCBPs, nor the health care industry more generally are governmental entities, and Congress does not have the power to delegate law-making authority outside of the government."
- DEFENDANTS JOINT MEMORANDUM, United States v. Stephen J. vs. Linda K. Schneider

"Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"
- Sir Thomas More, in Robert Bolt's "A Man For All Seasons"

SUBJECT: The AMA Writes the Laws

Should the American Medical Association (AMA) have the power to write laws? Some bureaucrats think they already do.

DownsizeDC.org proposed the "Write the Laws Act" (WTLA) to prevent unelected bureaucrats from writing regulations that have the force of law. Only elected representatives should have that power. We believe there should be "no legislation without representation."

Sadly, we've just learned that the problem WTLA seeks to fix is even worse than we thought. Unelected bureaucrats in the Justice Department have now taken to treating the standards of a private organization, the AMA, as if they had the force of law.

A doctor in Kansas is facing twenty years to life for failing to conform to the standards of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Stephen J. Schneider and his wife, nurse Linda K. Schneider, are charged with illegally distributing prescription drugs, along with several counts of related fraud and illegal monetary transactions.

Did the Schneiders sell illegal drugs? No. They simply prescribed FDA-approved medications to people in pain. Now they face years in prison simply because the Justice Department disagrees with their medical judgments.

That's bad enough, but there's more . . .

While the Schneiders are charged with violating the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the Schneiders didn't actually violate any specific provision in it. Instead, the Justice Department accuses the Schneiders of violating . . .

• The policies of the Health Care Benefit Providers (HCBP's) whom they billed -- if true, then the HCBP's should sue the Schneiders in civil court.
• Kansas state law -- if true, then Kansas should prosecute them, not the federal government.
• "Industry principles" -- but those "principles" aren't encoded in federal law, and if the Schneiders violated them, they should instead be investigated by medical licensing boards.
• The Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code book, a "privately written, trademarked and copyrighted publication of a commercial affiliate of the American Medical Association."

The AMA, of course, is a private organization, and while the CPT is used by the government, it is not law.

It's important to recognize that Justice Department bureaucrats want to imprison the Schneiders because they disagree with the Schneider's medical judgments, NOT because the Schneider's broke the law. Mere bureaucrats are treating the guidelines of private organizations as if they were laws. Like a six year-old in a playground game, the bureaucrats are "making it up as they go along."

This prosecution threatens all doctors -- and their patients, including you.

The Schneider's case, and others like it, will encourage doctors to let their patients suffer in agony rather than risk a prison sentence. But . . .

Under WTLA the Schneider's case would be dismissed, because the couple isn't being accused of violating any law enacted by Congress. According to the WTLA, this would constitute a complete defense.

Thomas More is right: if the Devil breaks the law he should be prosecuted, but not before then. The same should go for doctors and everyone else. This is a fundamental principle of free society. Our constitution says that the only valid laws are those enacted by Congress, not those written by unelected bureaucrats or lifted from the guidelines of private organizations by tyrannical prosecutors.

Tell your Representative and Senators to introduce the "Write the Laws Act." In your personal comments, tell them about the Schneider case and how the Justice Department is treating AMA rules as if they had the force of law. Tell them the WTLA would prevent such a legal travesty from ever occurring again. You can send your message here.

Thank you for being a a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org

Real Regulation

Today's Downsizer-Dispatch . . .

Quote of the Day:

In a truly free market, there is no restriction, imposed cost, or arbitrary subsidy on peaceful and honest enterprise. The U.S.A. has never in its history had a truly free market. - Economist Fred Foldvary

Subject: Real Regulation

In a true free market (something we've never had) businesses have a clear incentive to provide safety, so they won't lose customers and employees to their competitors. More importantly . . .

In a true free market businesses are legally liable for the safety of their products, services, and work-places. To limit this liability businesses seek insurance. The insurance providers then do oversight to limit their own risk of loss by making sure that products, services, and work-places, are in fact safe.

This free-market approach to safety regulation is what funds the existence -- even in our current un-free market -- of something like Underwriter's Laboratory (UL). UL tests product safety in order to protect insurers from losses. The result is increased safety for you.

The other approach to safety is one driven by top-down regulations and inspections provided by unaccountable bureaucrats and paid for with tax dollars. The problem with this system is that it greatly muddies the water as to whom is actually liable for safety failures.

If Underwriter's Laboratory makes a mistake, it pays a big price, out of its own pocket. But if, for instance, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) makes a mistake, it doesn't pay any price at all.

In the year 2000 it was discovered that . . .

• Between 1,800 and 2,000 mechanics were falsely certified by St. George Aviation in the late 1990's.
• Eight years later, the FAA has found and re-tested only 700 of these mechanics, and most of these received only partial tests.
• The failure rate was 36% among those re-tested.
• This rate suggests there may be 400 or more unqualified mechanics still working in the airline industry, and the FAA is doing almost nothing about it. Source: Cybercast News Service

When will the FAA pay a price for this failure? Probably never. As a coercion-enforced monopoly the government rarely has to pay any price for failure. Instead, the FAA may get a larger budget so, supposedly, it can do better in the future. Worse still . . .

If an airline wants to protect itself against FAA incompetence it will have to pay extra for insurance and underwriting oversight, while still submitting to the FAA's regulations and inspectors. This is a cost most airline's can't afford, so we end up with only the FAA's incompetent and unaccountable "protections."

Meanwhile, businesses have an incentive to game the system, using their political clout to gain favorable treatment from government regulators and government-imposed limits on their liability.

So-called government regulation is a fraud. We need less fake regulation by government, and more Real Regulation by the free market. DownsizeDC.org has a proposal that will give you exactly that. It's called the "Write the Laws Act" (WTLA).

• WTLA would reduce the burden of incompetent government regulations while making businesses more accountable to their customers.
• The WTLA strips unelected bureaucracies such as the FAA of their law-making powers, and restores to Congress the full responsibility for all rule making, in keeping with the Constitution's separation of powers.
• Congress won't have the time or knowledge to create complicated regulations, so there will be fewer of them, and those that do exist may work better. Instead, businesses will be legally liable for their failures, and regulated by insurance underwriting.
• This would reduce the cost you pay for ineffective government regulations, while also making you safer.

To learn more about the Write the Laws Act, click here.

And please tell Congress to introduce and pass the Write the Laws Act.

Use your personal comments to tell Congress that the FAA's mishandling of the flight mechanics testing scandal is evidence that bureaucrats are incapable of keeping the people safe. Tell them that only a free market, legal liability, and insurance underwriting, can hold businesses accountable and keep consumers safe. Tell them you have more faith in groups like Underwriters Laboratory than you do in government regulators like the FAA.

You can send your message here.

In addition, this message is also posted on our blog, and you can leave comments there if you so desire.

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

James Wilson & Perry Willis
Assistant to the President & Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org

How to Stop the SPP

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/2008/apr/28/how_to_stop_the_spp

Today's Downsizer-Dispatch . . .

Last week, the Presidents of Mexico and the U.S. met with the Prime Minister of Canada to work on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The SPP is a working relationship between bureaucrats in all three countries to promote greater uniformity in economic and security matters. Here are two of the SPP's goals, from the SPP's own website:

• Safe Food & Products: Strengthen cooperation to better identify, assess and manage unsafe food and products before they enter North America, and collaborate to promote the compatibility of our related regulatory and inspection regimes;

• Energy and Environment: Develop projects under the newly signed Agreement on Science and Technology; and cooperate on moving new technologies to the marketplace, auto fuel efficiency and energy efficiency standards ;

What's the goal here? Simply, if something is manufactured in Mexico or Canada, it won't have to be inspected when entering the United States. In addition, if something is imported into Mexico or Canada, their inspections will be "good enough" and the goods can be trucked into the United States with no further inspections.

What is the driving force behind this integration? Not the people of the three countries. Congress had no say in the formation of the SPP. Instead, these government bureaucrats are working hand-in-hand with the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC). And who are the members of the NACC? Representatives from some of the largest companies on the continent, including Wal-Mart, General Motors, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Chevron, New York Life, and Home Depot.

For some strange reason, you weren't invited.

The SPP isn't government by the people, for the people, but rather government by bureaucrats, for Big Business. It seeks to harmonize regulations in the three countries to make it easier for the largest companies to do business. Whether or not these new regulations will benefit the people is beside the point. Whether or not these regulations would be good for small business is beside the point.

To preserve national sovereigny and representative government, we must put an end to the SPP. While we're at it, we must put an end to all cozy relationships between Big Business and bureaucratic regulators. DownsizeDC.org's Write the Laws Act (WTLA) will accomplish this. Under the WTLA, any law or regulation must be written by Congress itself, not by unelected bureaucrats. Regulatory agencies, instead of crafting policy, will be confined to investigating and prosecuting laws and regulations written and passed by Congress. The WTLA will put an end to the SPP because it will strip the Executive Branch of the power to implement its recommendations and regulations.

You can learn more about the Write the Laws Act here.

And please tell Congress to pass the Write the Laws Act. In your comments, tell them you oppose the SPP. Tell them you don't believe that bureaucrats working in concert with foreign counterparts and Big Business should be making policy. Tell them Congress should write every law and regulation. You can do so here.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org

The Cost of Everything Else

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/2008/mar/10/the_cost_of_everything_else

Today's Downsizer-Dispatch . . .

Quote of the Day:

“In the republic’s early days the kind of intrusive, detailed rules so prevalent today simply didn’t exist. In the years since, the creep of new regulations has resulted in an unwieldy mass of expensive rules that attempt to control things which would have shocked the Founding Fathers.” - Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr.

Subject: The Cost of Everything Else

In 2007, over 53% of the federal budget went to mandatory entitlements and welfare spending, and 20% to the Department of Defense. About 9% went to interest payments on the national debt. And just 18% went to Everything Else, from the FDA to Homeland Security to foreign aid. Source: Congressional Budget Office

To clean up America's fiscal mess, we will have to think about entitlement reform and a new, more efficient national security strategy. Steep budget cuts for Everything Else will help, but only a little. There's a better reason to cut Everything Else: these departments and programs tend to do more harm than good. A lot more.

Here are just a few examples. Ethanol subsidies increase the price of food. Non-violent drug offenders waste away in federal prison when they could be in the workforce. Public education has deteriorated greatly as the federal government has assumed more and more control. And then there's the cost of regulation . . .

As Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote last year, federal regulations cost the economy $1.14 trillion in 2006. That is more than what individuals paid in income taxes that year. It was more than total corporate profits. And it cost the federal government just $41 billion to administer and police the regulatory state. Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute

That is to say, for every $1 the federal government spends writing and enforcing regulations, it destroys $25 that could have been generated in the economy. The cost of regulatory compliance hurts small businesses especially, destroys competition, and drives up prices.

But the worst part is, "we the people" generally have no say. In 2006, 321 bills were passed by Congress and signed into law, whereas unelected bureaucrats in regulatory agencies issued 3,718 final rules and added almost 75,000 pages to the Federal Register.

The Constitution requires that Congress, not executive branch agencies, make the laws. If the people's representatives in Congress can't or won't sweat the details of writing complicated regulations, then why should the people have to sweat the details of complying with them?. If Congress had to write all laws and regulations, only the most necessary would pass, and the number of unnecessary and burdensome regulations will drop dramatically. To restore the Constitutional Separation of Powers, increase the freedom of the people, and revive the economy, DownsizeDC.org has introduced the Write the Laws Act.

Please tell your Representative and Senators to pass the Write the Laws Act. Tell them that legislation by executive branch agencies is unconstitutional. And point out that the cost of regulations is taking away a trillion dollars from the economy. You can do so here.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

Sincerely,

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org

The FEC vs. Free Speech

This is the latest Dispatch at Downsize DC. Excerpt:

A rich person, acting alone, can spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose a candidate, without government interference. But the government will interfere plenty if two, or more, less wealthy people cooperate to match what the rich person spends.

Individuals who cooperate to express opinions about candidates have to consult lawyers and accountants, file reports with the government, and potentially face large fines. They will also be limited to contributions of $5,000 each, while the rich person, acting alone, bears none of these burdens, and can spend millions.

When it comes to political campaigns, one rich person has more rights than an infinite number of poor people.

The federal government has a special gang it uses to control the right of people to cooperate to express opinions about candidates. It's called the Federal Election Commission -- FEC for short.