Whatchamacolumn: At every level, regulatory overreach strangles America

Pure and simple: Government rules, laws, mandates and regulatory overreach have strangled America.

Not “are strangling,” as has been lamented nonstop for decades, but “have strangled.”

Consider McMinnville’s zoning ordinance — all 360 pages with 30,000 words — controlling every iota of physical space we inhabit. There are so many complex rules that the city has to hire more people to enforce them, and continually is raising fees and costs to citizens who must access the regulatory system with already expensive professional help.

But that’s just a ripple in the sea of government regulation.

The Code of Federal Regulations has more than 200,000 pages, much of it so unclear and unreadable that regulators themselves can’t agree on enforcement. Here’s a February comment from The Heritage Foundation:

Whatchamacolumn

Jeb Bladine is president and publisher of the News-Register.

> See his column

“The federal government has imposed tens of thousands of regulations on our once great manufacturing sector, grinding production nearly to a halt and racking up billions annually in compliance costs. With ‘green’ energy mandates, diversity-driven quotas, and anti-competitive rules lobbied by large unions and corporations alike to keep out both non-union labor and small businesses, American manufacturing has been crippled.

“A recent study by the National Association of Manufacturers estimated that federal regulations alone cost large manufacturers with at least 100 employees an average of $24,800 per worker annually. That’s roughly half the salary of the typical blue-collar employee. In other words, these onerous regulations increase the cost of hiring American workers by 50 percent.

“It’s even worse for small businesses with less than 50 employees, where regulation costs a staggering $50,100 per worker annually. In that case, the employer’s labor cost is now roughly doubled.”

There is constant top-down pressure: Unfunded federal mandates strangle our states; unfunded state mandates strangle our counties, cities, school districts and special districts; they in turn strangle our citizens.

From physical environment to transportation, finances to culture, business practices and all in-between, ever-evolving laws and rules create burdens that collectively exceed the intended benefits.

The financial impact of government over-regulation is like taxes: We not only have to pay our own, but whatever we buy, we have to pay the largely unrecognized regulatory costs of those service/product providers.

Benevolent government regulation is essential to the health and well-being of human civilization, particularly in a democratic system where citizens shape those rules. But bureaucracy has run amok at all levels, as David Brooks wrote for The New York Times in January:

“It’s not only that growing bureaucracies cost a lot of money; they also enervate American society. They redistribute power from workers to rule makers, and in so doing sap initiative, discretion, creativity and drive.”

This state of affairs is driving American politics hard to the right. As Brooks wrote:

“Trumpian populism is about many things, but one of them is this: working-class people rebelling against administrators. It is about people who want to lead lives of freedom, creativity and vitality, who find themselves working at jobs, sending their kids to schools and visiting hospitals, where they confront ‘an immense and tutelary power’ (Tocqueville’s words) that is out to diminish them.”

Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.