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Regulatory Fever Returns
| Article
# : |
18139 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1990 |
3,069 Words |
| Author
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Murray Weidenbaum
Murray Weidenbaum director of the Center for the Study of
American Business at Washington University in St. Louis and a
former chairman of the President's Council of Economic
Advisers. |
The most casual observer of the Washington scene can spot the current upturn in federal regulation of private economic activity. Congressional action on new and more burdensome regulation is proceeding at a feverish pace. A comprehensive revision and expansion of the Clean Air Act may soon be passed by Congress and sent to the While House. Simultaneously, Congress is taking action on proposed laws to reverse Super Court rulings on affirmative action (and much more), and to mandate employee leave for personal and family illness. Each of these expansions of regulation will increase, often unnecessarily, the burdens imposed by government on the economy.
Before we consider the specific and onerous expansions of federal regulation that are already in the congressional pipeline, it is useful to get some overall perspective of the new trend. Such statistical corroborating evidence of the new wave of regulatory expansion comes form two researchers at the Center for the Study of American Business, Kenneth Chilton and Melinda Warren, who recently completed a detailed compilation of the budget and staffing of the federal regulatory agencies as proposed in President Bush's budget for fiscal year 1991.
The two researchers estimate that spending by federal regulators will reach a record high of $12 billion in fiscal 1991. That represents a 9 percent rise in nominal terms (up 4 percent after adjusting for inflation.) Last year's budget, by contrast, as submitted by outgoing President Ronald Reagan, called for only a 2 percent nominal increase in regulatory spending (a reduction of 1 percent in real terms). Interestingly enough, after Congress and the Bush administration finished acting on the fiscal 1990 budget, the increase exceeded the
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