The Cost Of Enforcing Government Regulation

by Wayne Crews on February 4, 2013 · 0 comments

in Economy, Features, Regulation

Regulatory cost estimates of around $1.8 trillion encompass compliance costs paid by the public plus economic drag. But but those estimates do not include the costs of administering the regulatory state, that is, on-budget amounts spent by federal agencies to produce rules and to police regulatory compliance are not accounted for there.

For that part of the “regulatory budget,” the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis and the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., regularly examine the federal budget to excerpt and compile the administrative costs of developing and enforcing regulations. Because those funds are amounts that taxpayers pay to support agencies’ administrative budgets, rather than compliance costs paid by the regulated parties, the amounts are disclosed in the federal budget. 

The newest report, “Growth in Regulators’ Budget Slowed by Fiscal Stalemate: An Analysis of the U.S. Budget for Fiscal Years 2012 and 2013,” finds that fiscal year 2012 enforcement costs incurred by federal departments and agencies stood at an estimated $61 billion (in constant 2012 dollars; here I’ve adjusted the figures from the original 2005 dollars). That represents an 8.6-percent increase over the previous year’s $59 billion.  To Read More…..