The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
Adam Freedman ·
Mar 20, 2011 at 1:14pm
Some statistics from James L. Buckley's Freedom at Risk, recently excerpted and reviewed at National Review.
- In 1935, at the outset of the New Deal, the [United States Code] consisted of a single volume containing 2,275 pages of statutes. . . Today, the Code consists of thirty volumes of statutory law.
- But ... that is just the tip of the iceberg. . . . By 2010, the Code of Federal Regulations consisted of 225 volumes containing 35,367 pages of detailed, fine-print regulations.
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Comments :
Dec '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
It makes me wonder exactly which laws I'm breaking as I type this...
Edited on Mar 20, 2011 at 1:39pmJun '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
It makes me wonder, when will it be necessary to start over?
Dec '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
I suppose the criminalization of opposition politics can take up some space.
Feb '11
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
This doesn't even count state, county, & municipal regulations, which for many businesses have an even greater impact than the federal ones.
See Dr Claw and the Lobster Underground
Jul '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
A lot of it will be redundant. In the 15th Century laws were passed seven times forbidding the playing of football in the streets of London. There is no evidence to suggest that these laws had any lasting effect.
As I recall, Reagan made a fair effort to scrub the regulations. Can't say as much for any of the rest of them. If Congress sells us laws each election season, obviously we have accumulated more than enough. The more vitality we embue on the federal government, the greater the risk that selective enforcement of that overbearing morass of a code will pain each and every one of us.
Oct '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
Congress is culpable here. It is Congress who has delegated its authority to write the regulations enabling its statutes to the Executive bureacracy. Maybe we should turn up the heat on Congress by demanding that they write the administrative as well as the statutory law necessary to carry out their legislative responsibilities. That may slow down the sausage making a bit!
Jun '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
With any luck all the world's lawyers will choke on all the laws all the world's lawyers passed.
Jun '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
Cas: There are more lawyers than you think--me included--who find federal laws and regulations to be both absurd and incomprehensible.
Our punishment is that on occasion we are forced, on behalf of a client, to read portions of the crap passed by federal and state agencies.
Good Berean nails one of the largely unknown but most consequential changes in the law (most of which happened in the last fifty years): the broad delegation of authority to unelected regulatory agencies to adopt rules. In addition to death and taxes, you can always rely on an agency to construe its powers far broader than the statutes under which it operates--and they get away with it.
It's easy to blame the lawyers, but this is far more than that: it is a direct result of the liberal tendency to believe we're better off being ruled by so-called "experts."
Jul '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
Y'all should try living with Rosalynn.
May '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
Perhaps every President should appoint a team of lawyers whose only role is to identify laws which could be sensibly eliminated.
Jun '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
I agree. Obama plays lip service to it. This is just one of many reasons we need a real conservative in 2012.
May '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
Milton Freidman made just this point on Free to Choose. I guess nobody back then much noticed, either.
May '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
It makes me wonder, when everything is wrong nothing is wrong.
Dec '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
Everything that is not compulsory is forbidden.
May '10
Re: The Administrative State -- by the Numbers
There is some truth to that. When laws become too numerous and too unreasonable, citizens lose respect for law in general. Law as a concept becomes less about social duty than about the whims of the state.