Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 7: Recognize and Reduce Indirect Costs of Regulation

by Wayne Crews on February 10, 2014

Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his State of the Union address heralds a class warfare agenda, one fusing an “income inequality” theme with federal industrial policy and other activism.

“When I can act on my own without Congress, I’m going to do so,” Obama promises. This spend-and-transfer fixation makes Americans poorer and dependent except for the lucky few running things.  Others have argued for federal budget rationality as essential to any anti-poverty agenda. This series proposes a greater prosperity enhancing opportunity, streamlining the nearly $2 trillion regulatory state and ending the uncertainty, wealth destruction and job loss it creates. 

Accountability in government and basic fairness require acknowledging indirect effects of regulation and minimizing negative impacts. Accountability in government and basic fairness require acknowledging indirect effects of regulation and minimizing negative impacts.

In the series “Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, it was noted that indirect costs may often be omitted from compliance-focused regulatory direct cost estimates, such as the engineering costs of controlling an emission.

But if indirect costs are regarded as too difficult to compute, then government cannot credibly argue that compliance is somehow not overly burdensome.........To Read More....