My friend and former student Paul Gerner suggested to me a few years ago that the federal government have a “regulatory reset.” The idea is that the government eliminates all regulations and then brings back the ones it decides it wants. Presumably, we would end up with substantially fewer regulations.
I loved the idea but it boggled my mind. How would that work? What would happen to certain industries and lots of people who depend on some degree of certainty in making their plans? And, of course, aside from the issue of how it would work, neither Paul nor I thought the federal government would ever do it.
Expired Regulations
I still think that. But James Broughel, a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center, points out that that’s exactly what Idaho’s state government has just done. He writes:
Something rather remarkable just happened in Idaho. The state legislature opted to—in essence—repeal the entire state regulatory code. The cause may have been dysfunction across legislative chambers, but the result is serendipitous. A new governor is presented with an unprecedented opportunity to repeal an outdated and burdensome regulatory code and replace it with a more streamlined and sensible set of rules. Other states should be paying close attention.
He continues:
Instead, the legislature wrapped up an acrimonious session in April without passing a rule-reauthorization bill. As a result, come July 1, some 8,200 pages of regulations containing 736 chapters of state rules will expire. Any rules the governor opts to keep will have to be implemented as emergency regulations, and the legislature will consider them anew when it returns next January.
Hopefully they’ll use some common sense and carefully examine all of the expired/repealed reg’s and put a lot of thought into deciding which of them should be reinstated.
As stupid as that is, that was the reason given for a ban back in the old BNN (TOP for some) when I called Who, wHo with added coloring to indicate… craziness. The bastard TalktoAssholeBill said I called that bitch a Ho.
Anyway, yes, I seem to recall you previously mentioning that.
In a way I’m reminded of the horror that was encountered when folks described that chick who went before Congress wanting Uncle Sam to pay for her contraceptives as a slut.
As far as Who goes, she used to stalk me and trash talk me whenever I posted in a thread about homosexuality. I would correct her posts by more fully and explicitly stating my position what she chided about. I’m not the one who believes shameful things. Never play their game.
One thing I don’t get is why people are so terrified of less government regulations. I don’t even know if I don’t disagree with NONE. Why? In my view, if you cause harm to the environment or to people, that’s already against the law regardless of regulations. Prosecute the twits and have it over with. Why the hell do I need a regulation that says I have to have live data being sent to shore on an oil rig? It’s in the companies best interest to preserve data because most of the accidents are human error by the same people harmed. We’ve been collecting data for years but now we have to have a new system (I’m not bitching, I sell them) to transfer data to shore as if that’s going to change a damn thing. Most of these regulations are feel good things that just provide a mechanism for government to raise more money… you know, kind of like speed limits. It’s already illegal to harm someone through negligence but we’re way too damn focused on trying to prevent shit that we’ve crossed the line into treating citizens like kids. Now Johnny, if you drive 70 on a 60, we’re going to put you in a time out… Should there be some regulations? Sure. Could we do without 80% of the ones we have? In my opinion, yes. Seems like we spend half our time making sure we adhere to BSEE these days and when we ask for confirmation that we meet it, we get a deer in the headlights stare… the idiots writing the code can’t tell us whether or not we comply. /rant off.
I’ve speculated that as people become less and less ethical and moral they demand more and more regulations because, being less ethical themselves, they can more easily imagine all the ways others might abuse or take advantage of them, and they want to be protected from people like them.
It is supremely ironic that as the trustworthiness of people has decreased in this country that so many want to trust government more.
There may be something to that. The more we deviate from a common moral code the more force of gov’t is required to keep us living in a relatively peaceful and productive civil society.
God’s law is slowly being replaced by Man’s law or Gov’t law as we become ever more balkanized rather than united sharing one basic moral code as dictated by The Bible.
