Regulation and Economic Miracles

View 695 Tuesday, October 04, 2011

My program for prosperity: Congress suspends all federal regulations for ten years. All of them. All such matters are now left to the states. The suspension will take place in 180 days. During those 180 days Congress can reinstate those deemed necessary and affordable. One would expect them to keep the Department of Agriculture meat inspection programs, and I suspect that the Bunny Inspectors would not even be considered. Programs like Americans with Disabilities are gone unless Congress votes to keep them. Minimum wages are now a state matter. I am sure there would be heavy lobbying in favor of some regulations and against others. It would be frantic, but if Congress doesn’t vote to keep the regulations they are gone, their enforcement ceases, and those involved in it are redundant under civil service rules.

The result is likely to be an economic miracle. Meanwhile the states would have to decide what to do about a lot of those regulations: adopt them or not. The economic miracle would probably not extend to states that kept a lot of regulations.

The alternative is probably another great depression.

Am I serious? I think so. The economy is in bad shape, manufacturing is in bad shape, regulations strangle everything. This is no longer the land of the free. The theory of all that regulation is that it makes life better for everyone. Perhaps so in times of great prosperity. It is not true now. The American people want opportunity. They want work, preferably steady work. For some that means a life of opportunities and change, but for others what is wanted it a lifetime of employment at the lower middle class level. We achieved that once until greed destroyed that system and it was replaced by union greed on the one hand, corporate greed on the other, and an attempt to change it all by regulation. That has not worked. Greed is not attractive; but the Iron Law makes it certain that regulations won’t end it, and it won’t be absent from the regulators who look for more reasons to justify their jobs and power.

We need an economic miracle.

Jerry,

Yesterday, you said "The US needs a bureau whose task is to show the cost of the other bureaus. Maybe if everyone understood what government costs there would be less of it?" More importantly, if everyone paid a portion of that cost, they would feel the pain as the cost went up.

Russ Armstrong

And if we had freedom again we might decide that it was valuable.

Electric Plane Wows NASA | NBC Bay Area

Jerry,

X-prizes work!

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/tech/Electric-Plane-Wows-NASA-131038118.html

If we can build an electric plane that flies 200 miles at 100 mph, we can build viable electric cars. Now all we need is a primary energy source other than fossil fuels to charge the battery.

Jim Crawford

Yes; prizes work much better than trying to pick winners and subsidize them. Stop regulating and start awarding prizes. Bring back prosperity.