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The Regulation of the American People

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With the role of red bureaucratic tape in hampering small business just in the news, we thought we'd take a historic look
at how many pages of new rules and regulations the federal government spits out
every year.

Or rather, in each year beginning with 1936, because that's all as far back
as we could find the data! Our chart below visualizes what we found.

Generally speaking, with the exception of the period of World War 2, we find
that the federal government used to be pretty well contained when it came to
imposing new rules and regulations on the American people - at least, all the
way up to 1970, when it appears to have undergone a bureaucratic explosion.

Here, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency appears
to have been the impetus for unleashing unprecedented waves of new rules and
regulations affecting nearly every aspect of American life all throughout the
next decade.

That changed in the 1980s, as the number of new rules and regulations being
issued each year was brought under control. In the 1990s though, the number of
federal regulations began creeping steadily upward.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century though, the amount of new
rules and regulations issued each year was largely stable. That changed with the
financial crisis of 2008, which saw new rules and
regulations issued by the federal government spike in that year, but which
abated with the waning of the crisis in 2009 as the number of pages issued to
the Federal Register fell.

In 2010 however, President Obama cranked up the federal government's
regulation mill to all time highs, keeping it there at least through 2011.

Wayne Crews' data for 2010 through 24 July 2012 indicates that the
federal government is currently on pace to issue at least 76,300 pages of new
rules and regulations this year, but we suspect the actual figure will be much
larger.

The reason why is because of ObamaCare, where the recent Supreme Court
decision allowing the law to go into effect will require the federal government
to issue a very large number of new rules and regulations before
next year:

With the Supreme Court giving President Obama's new health care law a green
light, federal and state officials are turning to implementation of the law --
a lengthy and massive undertaking still in its early stages, but already
costing money and expanding the government.

The Health and Human Services Department "was given a billion dollars
implementation money," Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana said. "That
money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and IT programs,
computerization for the implementation."

"Oh boy," Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute said. "HHS has a huge amount of
work to do and the states do, too. There will be new health insurance
marketplaces in every state in the country, places you can go online, compare
health plans."

The IRS, Health and Human Services and many other agencies will now write
thousands of pages of regulations -- an effort well under way:

"There's already 13,000 pages of regulations, and they're not even done
yet," Rehberg said.

We anticipate that most of the new rules and regulations related to the
implementation of ObamaCare will be issued after the 6 November 2012 election,
mainly to avoid drawing an even more negative response from voters beforehand. So
add *that* to your fiscal cliff to worry about in 2013!

Data Sources

Crews, Wayne. Ten Thousand Commandments. Federal
Register Pages, 1936-Present [Google Docs Spreadsheet]. Accessed 24 July 2012.

Crews, Wayne. Ten Thousand Commandments. Federal Regulation - The Updates. Accessed 24 July
2012.

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Edward570
Wrote: Nov 26, 2012 3:00 AM

There should be a sunset provision in these regulations and
rules. 5 years and they go away unless re-approved.

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Edward570
Wrote: Nov 26, 2012 2:53 AM

Over 80,000 new rules and regulations this year. Do you
still believe the government won't be satisfied until they control every aspect
of your life? This is what happens when you let lawyers breed.

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Chris102
Wrote: Jul 30, 2012 1:24 PM

It is important to note that the total number of pages of
regulation on file, the SIZE of the Federal Registry, has not decreased since
the end of WWII. It has increased by 20,000 to 80,000 pages every year since
about 1950.

Ironically, our freedoms have decreased at exactly that same
pace.

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Sid14 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 11:58 PM

The road to the police state is paved with statutory laws.
In 1934, when FDR declared a "state of emergence", we were transformed from a
country under common law, requiring injury, damage and a victim to have a
"crime", to a country under statutory "police state" powers that circumvent ALL
of the above requirements. Since then we have been almost completely under
police state powers with the creation of an endless stream of statutory laws
regulating every aspect of our lives at the expense of our liberties. Nearly
EVERY judge, lawyer, politician and police officer enforces this tyranny against
our liberties.

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fneel Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 11:12 PM

what Maria explained I'm amazed that someone can get paid
$6438 in one month on the computer. did you read this website >>>
http://click2go.notlong.com/

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elko-mike
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 6:30 PM

The Regulatory Branch of government is tyrannical. In
Federalist #47 Madison wrote, "[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative,
executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and
whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the
very definition of tyranny."
These unelected, over-officious, nanny-state
bureaucrats write rules, determine when the rules have been broken, and impose
fines.
According to SBA Studies, $1 of every $7 of economic output is
consumed by society to satisfy the demands of the Regulatory Branch of
government. It will be essential to rid ourselves of these parasites in order to
get the economy growing again.

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None1257
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 2:25 PM

Please note that the it does not matter if the President is
a republican or a democrat, whether congress is controlled by republicans or
congress is controlled by democrats, there were ALWAYS more regulations.

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Topeka Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 5:25 PM

1. Presidents are responsible for promulgating regumalations
per laws created by Congress.

2. Point one, combined with Anti-Everything
Hysteria by the Left makes it difficult to not promulgate in response to
existing litigation. The Bushies faced a lot of this. eg: Promulgating in
response to mandatory EPA "phases" and more stringent roll-outs of standards -
the Bushies were attacked as "gutting" the CWA and the CAA even while they
pushed more reg's than Clinton - on the basis that Bushies refused to send out
the unicorns and moonbats ...

3. Take out Nixon, and clearly the curves
are better even for Lib-tard-lite Repubniks. Reagan has the only consistent
downturn since the post-WWII era

... just FYI

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Bob570 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 12:38 PM

So just how many Regulation are there in total. Plus 70 to
80 thousand new regulations during a Republican administration is not STABLE,
it's Criminal, Mr. Bush.

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Topeka Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 12:20 PM

brilliant ...

... but you left out state regulations
promulgated in accordance with the Federal reg's.

... except for
Immigration - the state's virtually have to keep pace in their reg's with the
Fed's - except a few Regumlation leaders such as CA or MA where the lib-tards
test drive the reg's to get "persuasive" authority for judicial imposition of
their fiats in other states. there are few exceptions to this rule, very few,
which exist primarily at boundaries where the state agencies are out of money so
the Fed's stopped pushing ...

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sfischer
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 10:52 AM

Death by 80,000 cuts.

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poorgrandchildren.com2
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 10:43 AM

""There ought to be a law..."--Motto of American fascists

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George33
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 2:01 PM

There OUGHT to be a law, that for every page of new law or
regulation, there must be two old pages taken away. Then when we get the total
level down to 1935 levels - take away page for page.

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Louie13
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 2:23 PM

And that ought to be a law that any federal law cannot
exceed ten pages. Enough of the two thousand page monstrosities that have
everything but the kitchen sink hidden in them.

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Daniel982
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 10:31 AM

You're already guilty, all they have to do is decide which
law or regulation to charge you with.

Ever read "Three Felonies a Day"?

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renny4 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 9:50 AM

I doubt Congress will have the guts, but if the Reps. take
Cong. and the pres. in Nov., unlike the system under Bush II, I hope they can
STOP passing laws and STOP thinking absolutely everything needs a federal law
and get rid of some we have:

sell off Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac (the
PO is mandated under the Const.), repeal the CRAs that assume all banks are
racial discriminators (banks will lend money that they think they can make money
on), rein in the EPA or shove it into Interior along with Energy or eliminate
them, get HHS our of every hospital and drs.' office, repeal ocare in its
entirety, & let med. ins. be sold among the states & allow people to
take med. ins. from job to job. Kill the Dept of Ed.

The states can
handle the rest

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Fuzzy2 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 10:19 AM

Can't get anything done without supermajority in Senate.
They can stop a new legislation but can't get rid of anything non-financial.

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poorgrandchildren.com2
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 8:32 AM

Fascism is a system under which individuals have the
illusion of ownership of businesses while government controls all the major
policies and procedures. When the inevitable failures occur, government blames
capitalism and evil greedy businessmen. Now, try to convince me we have freedom
of enterprise and not fascism.

"Miss me yet?"--King George, III

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Topeka Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 12:24 PM

... poor ...

good post - but the reason for the
illusions success is the slow roll out. Some Americans experienced this over 100
years ago - the very first segregation laws and Jim Crow laws - others later,
and still later and so on.

since the govt comes for us one at a time -
often to the chorus of envious or jealous shouts of "Get 'em!" due to a crime
(true or fake) - we always lose

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Michael
Bowler (formerly Michael) Wrote: Jul 29, 2012
7:59 AM

Please note, the graph shows NEW pages of regulations each
year...since there are literally millions of pages at this point, doesn't it
seem like the number should eventually drop as every thing is
covered.

When you have a mountain of regulations, so many that no single
person could possibly know all of them...or even half, it becomes a situation
where every citizen is in violation of something. This provides government with
the golden opportunity to get anyone it so desires for something anytime they
choose...which is the real point of the exercise. And they do.

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Fuzzy2 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 10:18 AM

There are probably hundreds of laws contradicting each other
by now.

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Daniel982
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 10:34 AM

Take a chainsaw to it!

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Francis
W. Porretto Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 5:48
AM

To a would-be totalitarian, alphabet-agency regulation has
two huge advantages over legislated law:
1. Regulators are faceless drones
who can't be voted out of office;
2. Legislators can use them as foils: by
campaigning against "unreasonable and excessive regulation" (and then doing
nothing about it), and by securing exceptions for favored constituents (a.k.a.
"constituent services.").

The whole thing smacks of Stalin's methods ("a
good Tsar, led astray by evil counsellors"). I'm not gullible enough to believe
it "just happened." Are you?

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Fuzzy2 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 10:17 AM

Concurrance.

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doc, aka
Rich Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 2:08 AM

At various times I've heard a lot of suggestions for
constitutional overhaul (new amendments) to fix this or that. Some of them
target controlling regulation, such as making it a constitutional amendment that
all laws self-expire ... if you want a law continued it has to be renewed at
some regular interval or it evaporates on it's own. Or the proposal that no law
can be longer than a chapter ... most everything in the constitution and
amendments was short and clear for the first 150 years. There's no reason for
laws that number into the thousands of pages that even those people who have to
vote on it don't know what they're voting on.

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Michael
Bowler (formerly Michael) Wrote: Jul 29, 2012
8:41 AM

The whole point of laws, written in legalese, with 100s or
1000s of pages and passed without clear public understanding, is to ensnare the
entire public into a constant state of violation...making any citizen who falls
into disfavor guilty of something...

It's a nightmare for the individual
and a permanent stranglehold by the government, just the way any statist would
want it.

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renny4 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 9:52 AM

No bill should be over 8 pages, the size of the first Civil
Rights Act.

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Fuzzy2 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 10:17 AM

I am so glad to see people feeling the same way I do. 8
pages? Ok, but knowing politicians, they will just reduce the font to
microscopic size. How about maximum characters of 3,500?

I bill for each
individual subject too. No add-ons for items unrelated to the bill being voted
on.

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Daniel982
Wrote: Jul 29, 2012 10:38 AM

Ya got to put teeth into the rules. How about having every
proposed law or regulation be presented by the sponsors while they're wearing a
rope around their neck(s). If the law or regulation fails to pass, use the rope.

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Fuzzy2 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 10:42 AM

The rope thing has a lot of promise.
I would also state
that ceding any U.S sovereignty to foreign entities is guilty of treason. Thus
giving the UN or any outside entity the ability to rule over an American is
punishable by death.

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Fuzzy2 Wrote:
Jul 29, 2012 10:43 AM

I'll state that in english.

Any legislator ceding US
authority to foreign powers is guilty of treason.

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RVNUSMC
Wrote: Jul 30, 2012 6:51 AM

The Civil Rights act is unconstitutional . . .

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