[StBernard] The Hidden Tax That's More Than $1 Trillion

[Westley Annis]

The Hidden Tax That's More Than $1 Trillion
By Wayne Crews Ryan Young 
 - FOXNews.com 

Here's what we can do to fight back against the enormous cost of federal
regulation.

Last year, Americans paid $989 billion in income taxes. Add to that sales
taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, and other taxes, and the total tax
burden comes to nearly 27 percent of national income. The Tax Foundation
calculated that you work from the beginning of the year until April 9 just
to pay off your taxes. Tax Freedom Day is moving alarmingly close to Tax
Day. Yet taxes aren't the whole picture when it comes to measuring the size
of government.

The federal government spends far more than it taxes. Last year alone, the
deficit was $1.4 trillion. This year's deficit is expected to grow to around
$1.8 trillion. Add in the burden of federal deficit spending, and we're
working until May 17 to pay for the growth of government (and that's not
even counting state and local deficit spending).

Yet even that's not all. The hidden tax of federal regulation cost
businesses and consumers an additional $1.187 trillion last year-none of
which shows up in the federal budget. Regulation eats up an additional 8.3
percent of GDP. We have to work an additional 34 days to pay for the federal
regulatory burden.

It's tempting to brush off regulatory costs, since most of them are borne by
businesses. But remember, businesses pass on their costs to consumers. We
all pay for the cost of the regulatory state.

Added together, total taxes, federal deficit spending, and federal
regulations push Cost of Government Day out to at least June 20. We don't
need to argue that government has grown too big-the data tells us as much
beyond any doubt.

What to do about the hidden tax of regulation? Three things come to mind.
One is disclosure. Our organization, the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
issues the annual Ten Thousand Commandments report (online at cei.org),
which tallies up federal regulatory costs every year.

Each year's federal budget, or the annual "Economic Report of the
President," should include in-depth chapters exploring the regulatory state,
along the lines of Ten Thousand Commandments. The more the public and
policymakers know about regulatory costs, the more likely they are to do
something about them. But disclosure alone is not enough.

Obsolete rules need to be removed from the books. Congress should task the
Office of Management and Budget with identifying rules to eliminate each
year. Congress should also implement its own bipartisan packages of cuts to
be voted on, up or down, without amendment.

Sunset provisions are a relatively simple way to do away with obsolete
regulations. Like a carton of milk, every new regulation should have an
expiration date, beyond which it gets discarded unless renewed by Congress.
With today's rapid technological change, five years is a reasonable term for
sunsetting.

Most important of all, Congress needs to reassume its lawmaking
responsibilities. It passed 125 bills last year-but federal agencies passed
3,503 final rules. This "regulation without representation" should end.

The Constitution says, "All legislative powers herein granted shall be
vested in a Congress." Cabinet departments and regulatory agencies are not
part of Congress; they should answer to it via at least expedited approval
of the most onerous rules.

Over-delegating its responsibilities to agencies lets Congress shift blame
away from itself for excessive or unpopular regulations. The people's
elected representatives should perform their rightful duty and approve all
new laws, not 125 out of 3,503.

Tax Freedom Day and Cost of Government Day are moving later in the calendar
with each passing year. It is well past time for a change of direction.

Wayne Crews is Vice President for Policy at the Competitive Enterprise
Institute in Washington, D.C., and the author of the 2010 edition of Ten
Thousand Commandments. Ryan Young is CEI's Warren T. Brookes Journalism
Fellow.