New Policy Circle Brief: Regulation – “The Fourth Branch of Government”
By The Policy Circle Team
Regulatory Agency: A regulatory agency is a public authority or government agency responsible for exercising autonomous authority over some area of human activity in a regulatory or supervisory capacity. Wikipedia
The more agencies, the more regulations. These agencies have been termed the “fourth branch of government” and it’s easy to see why when you consider that:
- The number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) have increased by 679% in 55 years – from 22,877 pages in 1960 to 178,277 pages in 2015.
According to the Washington Post“In 1790, [the federal government] had just 1,000 nonmilitary workers. In 1962, there were 2,515,000 federal employees. Today, we have 2,840,000 federal workers in 15 departments, 69 agencies and 383 nonmilitary sub-agencies.” In other words, in 1790 that’s one federal employee per about 4000 US citizens. Today, that’s about one federal worker for every 110 US citizens. (And that doesn’t include state or local level employees.)
- “The federal regulatory cost reached $1.885 trillion in 2015,” according to this Competitive Enterprise Institute report.
Some regulation is necessary to protect people and the environment, but what’s the right balance? As Milton and Rose Friedman warned “regulators usually end up serving the interests of the regulated rather than those of the public.” To make a little more sense of what are government regulations, and their impact on those creating jobs and services for their fellow citizens, check out The Policy Circle’s new Policy Brief on “Government Regulation.”
The Policy Circle will soon be publishing a brief on Free Speech. Let us know what other policy areas are of interest and concern to you by commenting below.
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