Carthage Must Be Destroyed! Part Two

By Rich Kozlovich and Jay Lehr

In Part One we outlined the massive regulatory load imposed on the nation by the federal level.  But it's a lot worse.  What's the rest of the story? 

In 2013 the states passed over 40,000 new laws, and that's not including county and city laws. If we make a broad assumption that the average rule multiplier for federal laws applies to state laws, we now have a potential of 1,014,400 new laws called – “rules!” Rules created by unaccountable bureaucrats, with their own agendas and views of reality, and who, generally speaking, went to college and then into government.

During the first five years of the Obama administration regulatory costs increased by $500 billion dollars, “with $112 billion in regulatory compliance costs in 2013 alone, and predicted that the burden would continue to increase this year to as much as $143 billion”.  The federal registry, where all the regulations are listed, contain 80,224 pages this year alone.  It’s estimated that in ten years at the current rate of regulatory growth there will generate approximately 900,000 new pages of regulations, which will be on top of the approximately 800,000 pages of regulations passed in the previous ten years.

All of these regulations do one thing for sure - create jobs – for non-productive bureaucrats.  It took government employees 10.38 billion hours to do “the paperwork for the federal government in 2013, and will take 78,000 full-time employees to complete the additional paperwork.” 

 

Are there benefits from laws and the regulations they generate, and if so, who benefits?  In this kind of hyper-regulatory, high tax economy many of these laws and regulations are promoted by businesses that want to make it harder for companies that will be, or are, competitors.  As a result “all aspects of business, entrepreneurship degenerates into “bribery and diplomacy.”  Instead of focusing on creating value for customers, entrepreneurs spend their time lobbying for favors or to avoid penalties, all trying to discern the government’s next move, anticipating or adapting to the newest regulations.” 

But this was to be expected from a party that loves big government and “more” laws and regulations - all the better to control our lives.  What about the administrations that have been considered
"conservative and anti-big government" and supposedly opposed to all these regulations?  There were more regulations passed during George W. Bush’s administration than any president since Richard Nixon.   

Furthermore this idea there is some invisible divide between the left and the so-called right regarding regulations and the promotion of the all powerful state is an illusion.   

“The modern regulatory state is a bipartisan enterprise: During the half-century before President Obama's election, the greatest growth in regulation came under Presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.  And the Bush administration set the stage for many of the Obama initiatives that Republicans are now attacking. Dodd-Frank's policy of designating some financial firms as "too big to fail" is a codification of the Paulson-Bernanke bailout approach of 2008. It was the Bush Treasury Department that first proposed a financial consumer-protection agency, and the Bush Environmental Protection Agency that first proposed regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Obama energy rules were authorized — and in some cases, such as the light-bulb ban, required — by a 2007 statute that President Bush vigorously championed.”

In Part One we said we'd come back to Richard Nixon, so, what about Richard M. Nixon?  Nixon was a strange man and still an enigma to many, and understandably so, because Nixon was the first to advocate what was called a New Federalism, which would ‘devolve’ power to state and local governments.  But he was the first one to jump on the environmental band wagon promoted by the first Earth Day in 1970.  He believed this was a precursor of public concern and he wanted to benefit from it politically.   

Eventually he passed the Clear Air Act, the Clear Water Act the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, requiring environmental impact statements for federal projects.   He created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).  All of which create virtual lava flows of scientifically dubious regulations, creating outrageous burdens on the American people, and the American economy.   Furthermore, all these laws and agencies give rise to lawsuits by activists that plague economic development with legal costs, studies and delays. 

What is the cost of all these federal regulations to the nation’s people?  As pointed out in Part One, it costs American families one point nine trillion dollars a year.   And I have no idea what kind of costs of all these state laws and even county and city laws impose on society.  So what is the solution - at least at the federal level?

For anyone trying to research just how many regulations become attached to any federal law, I wish you luck, and a lot of time.  You will find it's very difficult. Take for instance the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) passed by Jimmy Carter and ultimately the cause of the housing bubble that collapsed in 2008 causing a worldwide recession. 

As best as I can tell there were 25 regulations attached to that law, but that's deceptive because under each regulation there are Subparts and Appendices, which expands the impact of each regulation.   In effect, each regulation, or rule, becomes part of a maze of rules and regulations all presented as "explanations". 

The ultimate and actual number of regulations? Who knows, and personally, I doubt anyone knows for sure.  Rule 25 of CRA had five Subparts and two Appendices.   That's seven additional components, i.e. "explanations", which are in reality new laws passed by unelected bureaucrats. 

Let's assume that's that's typical for each CRA regulation, which I'm sure it isn't, we can now multiply those 25 regulations by seven and we get 175 "explanations"  Those "explanations" are now what we are absolutely required to follow in order to comply with one rule of one new federal law.  When you get involved with environmental laws, the numbers are off the charts, and hard to track, and I'm sure there are far more than five Subparts and two Appendices attached to each regulation, however, for analysis purposes, let's call this the "seven parts per regulation rule"!

Remember those 63, 284 rules  imposed on the nation between 1989 and 2002 from part one? Using the "seven parts per regulation rule" that give us 449,988 "explanations" that must be followed. 

In 2020 there were 178 federal laws passed with 3354 regulations.  That's about 19 regulations per law, but that doesn't include the Sections, Subsections and Appendices, which no one lists.  You have to actually find the law and follow the "eyes rolling back into your head" tedium to get that answer.

However, if we make a bit of a broad assumption using the "seven parts per regulation rule" for each regulation that turns those 19 regulations into 133 "explanations" that are in fact laws.  If there are an average of 8 it becomes 152.  Nine becomes 171.  Suppose the actual number is fifteen? That translates into 285 "explanations" that "must" be followed to be in compliance with federal law.  That makes them de-facto laws never passed by Congress, and the "administrative state" is now in charge, not Congress.  Do you doubt that? 

If you analyze this chart we find since 2003 Congress passed 3319 laws, and the bureaucrats created 65,582 rules averaging approximately 25 rules per law.  If we use the "seven parts per regulation rule" we now have 459,074 explanations that are often contradictory, absolutely complicated, and invariably, more interpretations, clarifications and explanations will follow as the years go by.  If we make an assumption it could be 15 parts per rule, we get a mind boggling 983,730 "explanations".  All of which are in fact mandatory, and worse yet: 

At least 4,450 federal crimes are embedded in those laws and regulations (with some 500 new crimes added per decade) – often for minor infractions like failing to complete or file precisely correct paperwork for selling orchids or importing wood for guitars. Neither inability to understand complex edicts, lack of knowledge that they could possibly exist, nor absence of intent to violate them is a defense, and the “crime” can bring military swat teams through doors, and land “violators” in prison for months or years.

The administrative state’s battle for dominance over the Congress and the nation is pretty much a fait accompli!

No one can fix this piecemeal because it is a foundational issue and until that foundational problem is recognized it will never be solved. So what is that foundational issue? Passage of the 16th and 17th Amendments in 1913, which laid the foundation for our doom. 

The 16th amendment gave the federal government the right to tax income.  This gave them the right to confiscate an unending amount of society’s money, [called their fair share] and spend it like drunken sailors. That turned the federal government into an insatiable beast that can never be fed to satisfaction, creating debt that is threatening the stability of not only the nation, but the world.

The 17th amendment changed how Senators are chosen. The Founding Fathers were determined to prevent the federal government from becoming an all too powerful entity that was centralized and out of control. In order to do this they created a government that wasn’t supposed to do very much creating a true balance of power between the central government and the state governments. In those days the word ‘state’ didn’t mean province, it meant an independent nation. So the Senators were chosen by the state governments to be ambassadors to the federal government in order to stop power grabbing by the central government.

After passage of the 17th Amendment they would be elected by popular vote, exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid, because that was already what the House of Representatives was for. That amendment destroyed the balance of power - the 10th Amendment notwithstanding. As long as the 17th exists the 10th is meaningless, and by misusing the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution the federal government can overturn any and all local authority, and individual rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

“The deterioration of the Constitution’s separation of, and balance of, powers means that regulators and bureaucrats now make most laws……The executive branch increasingly imposes its will: President Obama and his administration repeatedly say they are not going to wait for Congress…...”

What about the Supreme Court?  Don’t they understand how the Commerce Clause is being misused?  Until the Rehnquist court in 1995 SCOTUS never saw a law that exceeded Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause for sixty years.  In fact, they held the view that no matter how slight the impact might be on commerce it would now be subject to federal control.  If there ever was a system for abuse and tyranny this was it, and now the states were powerless to do anything about it.  

 So what does all of this have to do with Carthage?  

Roman Senator Cato the Elder was born in 234 BC and believed that Carthage was too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Therefore he gave speeches ending in the phrase [no matter the topic of the speech] “Carthago delenda est”, “Carthage Must be Destroyed". 

The 16th and 17th amendments are our modern Carthage – too dangerous to exist.   This is foundational. The only fix is the repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments.   After that - everything else will fall into place. But first we must be willing to recognize the 16th and 17th amendments really are the enemy. 

Our modern Carthage! 

Sedecim et septemdecim delenda est!