Code of Federal Regulations Expanding

Code of Federal Regulations Expanding under Obama

March 26, 2014

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) contains all of the permanent rules published by federal agencies in the Federal Register. Since 1975, the number of pages in the CFR has increased 146 percent, says Wayne Crews, vice president for policy and director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The CFR is different from the Federal Register, which contains material in addition to final rules (and contains more than 70,000 pages of material each year). There are 50 titles in the CFR, and its page count has only grown over the years, especially under President Obama.

• In 1960, the CFR had 22,877 pages across 68 volumes. At the end of 1976, it consisted of 133 volumes and 71,224 pages.
• At the end of President George W. Bush's second term in 2008, the number of pages in the CFR stood at 157,974.
• But at the end of 2013, the CFR had 175,496 pages -- a 146 percent increase since 1975.
• In his first five years in office, President Obama has added 17,522 pages of regulations -- that's an 11 percent increase in the size of the regulatory state and an average of 3,504 pages each year. President Bush's total eight years in office, on the other hand, resulted in a total of 2,490 pages each year.

While page counts are not a perfect way to gauge regulatory impact, it is clear that the greater government activity has hurt the private sector and employment.

Source: Wayne Crews, "New Data: Code of Federal Regulations Expanding, Faster Pace under Obama," Competitive Enterprise Institute, March 17, 2014.

quote for the week

Where the rule of law is ignored, ignorance of the law will rule…

continuing on the road to serfdom....

America's Dwindling Economic Freedom

January 15, 2014

World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the United States has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries, says Terry Miller, the director of the Center for International Trade and Economics at the Heritage Foundation.

For 20 years, the index has measured a nation's commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights.

• It's not hard to see why the United States is losing ground.
• Even marginal tax rates exceeding 43 percent cannot finance runaway government spending, which has caused the national debt to skyrocket.
• The Obama administration continues to shackle entire sectors of the economy with regulation, including health care, finance and energy.
• The intervention impedes both personal freedom and national prosperity.

But as the U.S. economy languishes, many countries are leaping ahead, thanks to policies that enhance economic freedom -- the same ones that made the U.S. economy the most powerful in the world.

• Hong Kong continues to dominate the list, followed by Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, New Zealand and Canada.
• These are the only countries to earn the index's "economically free" designation.
• Mauritius earned top honors among African countries and Chile excelled in Latin America.
• Despite the turmoil in the Middle East, several Gulf states, led by Bahrain, earned designation as "mostly free."

A realignment is under way in Europe, according to the index's findings.

• Eighteen European nations, including Germany, Sweden, Georgia and Poland, have reached new highs in economic freedom.
• By contrast, five others -- Greece, Italy, France, Cyprus and the United Kingdom -- registered scores lower than they received when the index started two decades ago.
• The most improved players are in Eastern Europe, including Estonia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.

The United States and the United Kingdom, historically champions of free enterprise, have suffered the most pronounced declines. Both countries now fall in the "mostly free" category. Some of the worst performers are in Latin America, particularly Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Source: Terry Miller, "America's Dwindling Economic Freedom," Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2014. "2014 Index of Economic Freedom," Heritage Foundation, January 2014.

consider this....

What will be the breaking point in our country when our foundation of freedom completely breaks down?

A continuing shift is occurring in our country where a growing number of our citizens (at least the vocal ones along with those who vote - legally or not) appear to have no concern for freedom-limiting moves by our political leaders. Where talk of entertaining systems of socialism (progressivism) and Marxism (ultimately communism) are no longer considered freedom destroyers but 'equalizers'. How have we come so far in such a short time?

In most endeavors of life the 'party' stops when the money runs out (or when wisdom kicks in which seems to be rare!). With our federal government continuing to print the 'party' money at exponential speed, at what point do we spend the last available dollar? Or put another way, when does the federal leverage rubber band break? When that occurs our freedom, as we know it, will be severely tested.

For your ponderment:

When only a small number of 'elite' control all of the marbles, we the people will not be invited to join in the game. Control (power) begets more control and the more centralized control we allow the less freedom we shall all enjoy…until one day its gone!

Calvin Coolidge quote

Despite the improvements in the numbers, the U.S. labor market remains anemic.

We focus on the targeted cause of the great and continuing recession (the housing bust and financial crisis) but very few take the time to understand the whys of what happened....we don't dig deeper to get to the root of why we had such financial chaos that resulted in such a lengthy lingering effect. 

Power seeking, greed, avarice, selfishness, foolishness, shortsightedness, band aide fix mentality, entitlement focus, attempted social engineering based on faulty premises - here are a few of our favorite things that, starting with our elected 'leaders', have wrought our lingering effect that continues even today and based upon who we have become, will be with us tomorrow......

Our elected political 'leadership' will continue to tinker until they totally break it all! 

Over two hundred years of foundation based upon freedom and liberty broken into unrecognizable pieces! 

"This shows the depth of the recent employment recession — worse than any other post-war recession — and the relatively slow recovery due to the lingering effects of the housing bust and financial crisis."

THE SCARIEST JOBS CHART EVER The U.S. economy added 203,000 jobs in November, which was much stronger than the the 185,000 expected. The October number was revised modestly downward to 200,000 from an earlier estimate of 204,000. Adding to optimism this morning, the unemployment rate plunged to 7.0% from 7.3% last month. This improvement came as the labor force participation rate rose to 63.0% from 62.8%. Despite the improvements in the numbers, the U.S. labor market remains anemic.  Calculated Risk runs a chart every month that puts the current jobs recovery into perspective. "This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms, compared to previous post WWII recessions," writes Bill McBride of Calculated Risk. "The dotted line is ex-Census hiring. This shows the depth of the recent employment recession — worse than any other post-war recession — and the relatively slow recovery due to the lingering effects of the housing bust and financial crisis."