Tag Archives: 10000 commandments

CEI Podcast for December 29, 2011: A Record Year for Regulation

Posted on December 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Have a listen here.

Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews talks about why 2011 was a record year for both new regulations and their cost. He also talks about his efforts to make the opaque regulatory state more transparent. Besides his annual “Ten Thousand Commandments” report, Wayne has started a new TenThousandCommandments.com website to update regulatory data in real time. There is a also a 10KC Twitter account and a Facebook page to make it as easy as possible to keep an eye on what regulatory agencies are up to.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in CEI Podcast, regulation

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Ten Thousand Commandments

Posted on April 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

The 2011 edition of Wayne Crews’ “Ten Thousand Commandments” was released today. The annual study gives a big-picture view of the regulatory state. You can read it here. Some of the main findings:

-Federal regulations cost $1.75 trillion per year. That’s equivalent to about half of federal spending. Government’s cost is actually about 50 percent bigger than most people think.

-Agencies issued 3,752 final rules in 2010. At that pace, a new rule comes into effect every two hours or so.

-Another 4,225 rules are in the pipeline right now.

-The Federal Register hit an all-time high 81,405 pages in 2010.

-Economically significant regulations are way up. These are defined as rules that have over $100 million of economic impact. There were 224 in 2010. That’s a 22 percent increase over 2009′s 184.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in regulation

Tagged , , , ,

CEI Podcast – October 14, 2010: Antitrust Follies and Regulatory Reform

Posted on October 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

Have a listen here.

CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews talks about why antitrust actually hurts competition, and offers some ideas for regulatory reform based on his recent articles for BigGovernment.com and The Washington Times, and on his annual Ten Thousand Commandments report.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Antitrust, CEI Podcast, Economics, regulation

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Federal Register Hits 50,000 Pages

Posted on August 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

And it’s on pace to hit a near-record 80,447 pages. Over at the Daily Caller, I crunch some of the numbers and offer up some Ideas for regulatory reform, inspired by Wayne Crews’ 10,000 Commandments.

-The Federal Register’s accelerating pace is due to two things. One is implementation of the health care and financial regulation bills. The other is that, fearing a party change in Congress, lame-duck regulating may have already begun.

-Keeping Federal Register page counts in check is important. Keeping the contents of those pages in check is even more important. Comprehensive regulatory reform involves much, much more.

-Such as five-year sunsets for all new regulations unless specifically reauthorized by Congress.

-And a comprehensive look at the regulatory state in each year’s Economics Report of the President.

-And a bipartisan commission to comb through the books for harmful or obsolete regulations. They would hand their recommendations for repeal to Congress for an up-or-down vote, without amendment.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Publications, regulation

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ten Thousand Commandments

Posted on April 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

Last year Americans paid $989 billion in income taxes (Happy Tax Day!). What you probably don’t know is that federal regulations cost as much as the income tax plus another quarter-trillion — $1.24 trillion in all.

Wayne Crews catalogues the damage in the freshly-released 2010 edition of “Ten Thousand Commandments.” Well worth a read.

If you don’t have time to read the full study, Wayne and I summarize the main findings over at AOL News.

A few numbers you should be aware of: 3,503 new regulations passed last year. Hardly any were repealed. More than 95 percent of the cost is off-budget, since the private sector pays for regulatory compliance costs. That means the burden of government is about a third higher than what it spends — in all, about 30 percent of the economy goes to paying for the federal government

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Economics, Publications, regulation

Tagged , , , , , , , ,