‘If You’re a Hammer…’

January 11, 2024 By Paul E. Scates

 

 Decades ago, as a pipefitter and welder in nuclear plant construction, I worked alongside many of the local union’s plumbers (the skill sets overlap).  It’ll probably come as a surprise to most that plumbers actually hold their profession in high regard................So it should come as no surprise to us that people who work in government typically believe their work is important.  The old saying, “The government ought to do something” seems to be the motivating mantra for government workers generally, and boy, are they “doing something.”..................

 

In a recent essay for The American Spectator, I wrote about the “Unconstitutionality Index,” a concept devised by Forbes magazine contributor Clyde Crews, Jr., which revealed that the 2020 Congress passed 177 laws, while unelected federal bureaucrats issued 3,038 rules or regulations.  (I was shocked that Congress had passed so few laws, since they insist on butting into citizens’ everyday lives, but then I found that for the past five decades they’ve been passing legislation at a 503 bills-per-year average, so I guess they’re running out of things to legislate!)

But over 3,000 rules/regulations in one year?  Surely that’s an outlier; I wouldn’t think there would be that many more things left to regulate.  Wrong… bigly (in current parlance).  From 2009 to the end of 2022, federal agencies imposed a total of 49,315 rules and regulations on the American people, averaging 3,522 new rules per year!  It’s apparently not just the ATF or FBI that have run amok.............To Read More....