Costs Of The Regulatory State
Written by Brian Garst, Posted in Liberty & Limited Government, Waste & Government Reform
The Competitive Enterprise Institute offers Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Regulatory State.
Here are some of the highlights:
– Extrapolating from an assessment of the federal regulatory enterprise by economist Mark Crain, regulatory costs hit an estimated $1.13 trillion in 2005.
– Given that 2005 government spending was $2.47 trillion, the hidden tax of regulation now approaches half the size on federal spending itself.
– Regulatory costs are more than triple the $318 billion budget defi cit.
– Regulatory costs also exceed all corporate pre-tax profi ts, which were $874 billion in 2003.
– On the basis of estimates from the Weidenbaum Center and the Mercatus Center, agencies spent $38.3 billion merely to administer and police the regulatory state in 2005. Counting the $1.127 billion in off-budget costs, that brings the total regulatory burden to $1.165 billion.
I serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.