Federal Register 2.0 Exposes Alarming Growth of Regulatory Regime

Thursday, August 4, 2011 3:27 PM by Soren Kreider

Every day, the hidden cost of government is expanding as federal regulators impose costly new rules and mandates on American taxpayers and businesses.  Buried within the federal register are thousands of new rules which will require American employers to spend more time complying with federal regulations and less time running their business and providing for their families.  The Federal Register 2.0 project exposes the alarming growth of the regulatory regime by allowing taxpayers a closer look at the bureaucratic process.

One of the most innovative parts of the Register 2.0 project is its ability to give taxpayers a real-time view of the regulatory regime. Just yesterday, 12 new rules have been implemented, 11 have been proposed, and 108 notices have been sent, totaling 367 pages of new federal code compliance mandates.  If regulators continue at last month’s average of 20 regulations per day, 235 regulations will be added to the federal register each year, totaling 4,260 pages.  What’s more, the two hallmark achievements of the Obama administration – ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank – both require thousands more rulemakings and regulations. The impact of this massive regulatory uncertainty will be discussed in our forthcoming Cost of Government Day Report.

While the costs associated with taxation are readily apparent, the insidious extension of the regulatory state imposes an equally onerous cost on citizens.  Last year, the average American worked 74 days to pay off the cost of regulation.  Thanks to the Federal Register 2.0, taxpayers can now see the alarming growth of the regulatory state in real time, as well as interact with the federal database to export, translate and manipulate data in a way that best suits their needs.  As the 2011 Cost of Government Day approaches, this new resource is illustrative of the threat imposed by an explosive regulatory regime.

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