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Regulatory Expense Increases!! |
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A report issued jointly by the George Washington University (D.C.) and Washington University (St. Louis) passes along the astonishing news that the federal outlay devoted to developing and enforcing federal regulations continues to grow rapidly. The president’s budget request for fiscal 2011 provides for regulatory spending of $59 billion and a regulatory staff of well over 280,000. The report notes that “these on-budget costs of regulation represent a small fraction of the full burden of regulations to society….” (Among other things, the report takes no account of state and local regulatory programs.) In the last decade, regulatory outlays have increased by more than 75 percent, and regulatory staff by more than 100,000. The largest increases in both areas are in the Transportation Security Administration. Even without recent legislation, both proposed and enacted, the report shows that regulatory costs in the areas of health and the environment are already relatively high, with over $8 billion a year spent on each one. The report includes much detail. Susan Dudley & Melinda Warren, A Decade of Growth in the Regulators’ Budget, Regulators Budget Report No. 32, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, May 18, 2010, available here: http://www.gwu.edu/~regstudies/Reg%20Budget%202010-05-18.pdf .
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