[kingu]

For some bizarre reason, people measure the success of a legislature or even a town council by the volumes they add to the local laws and regulation each year. We need to start measuring how much they repeal each year, and make a target date of the 4th of July, Independence Day, as a yearly returning of freedoms to the citizens.

[WayneS]

Or,

Require that two existing laws be repealed for every new law passed.

[rellimpank]

--and every piece of legislation passed should have an expiration date, requiring re-examination before passage.

--obviously much of the criminal code could be passed without much debate (murder, rape, etc.) but much could be let expire---

[mistfree]

I have long harbored the idea that no law can be proposed unless there is some other law that will be eliminated at the same time. I think that there are already enough laws on the books. Initially it will be easy to eliminate some old unenforced laws but eventually it might become more difficult. Good! the pols need to think before they legislate.

[no-s]

"I've said it before and I'll say it again - we need to have term limits on laws and regulations, not our representatives. Our representatives need to be our representatives, not the bureaucracy's. Also a system of government where the bureaucracy has first class status is always going to be a bureaucratic despotism, and probably compromise on the subject is meaningless (aka hyena and goat arguing over what's for dinner...)."

I often argue for absolute sunset on all acts, regulations, and orders. Nothing should remain in force without explicit reaffirmation. I think something like this is absolutely required for the continued existence of a free society and as a check on returning to despotism.

There are other ideas with similar concept. For example Heinlein posited a bi-cameral system where one body passed laws and the other reversed them, creating a class of politicians with incentive to reduce the burden instead of adding to it. The reversers were more powerful than the enablers by a certain degree. This makes the veto obsolete (and possibly turns the chief executive into the chief administrator). The idea of having a special day to repeal ro forgive is ancient, eg consider Jubilee or manumission with a new king, etc.