America is overwhelmed by the amount of law governing everyday decisions, and the constant threat of legal action by everyone from patients to employees.
Posted on 10/17/2010 8:15:56 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Drowning in Law: A flood of statutes, rules and regulations is killing the American spirit
BY Philip K. Howard
Sunday, October 10th 2010, 4:00 AM
Government is broken and the economy is gasping. The reason is the same: Americans no longer feel free to roll up their sleeves and make the choices needed to fix things. Governors come to office and find that 90% of the budget is pre-committed to entitlements and mandates enacted by politicians long dead. Teachers no longer have authority to maintain order in the classroom.
Legal mandates and entitlements have accumulated, like sediment in the harbor, until it is almost impossible for Americans to get anywhere without trudging through a treacherous legal swamp. Only big businesses, not small entrepreneurs, have the size (and legal staffs) to power through the legal sludge.
America will thrive only so long as Americans wake up in the morning believing they can succeed by their own efforts. Innovation, not cheap labor, is the economic engine of America. The net increase in jobs since 1980, according to research at the Kauffman Foundation, is attributed solely to newly-started businesses.
Unleashing these powerful human forces requires, however, an open field for individual opportunity - bounded by reliable legal structures that enforce contracts and other important social norms.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
America is overwhelmed by the amount of law governing everyday decisions, and the constant threat of legal action by everyone from patients to employees.
Being done by design and smells sinister.
It’s not just jobs creation either. Every day, a person has to pause and wonder if the smallest personal action is still legal. It’s a stifling and oppressive atmosphere.
What do we expect when we continue elect lawyers who create laws and regs that benefit more lawyers.
A Russian coworker told me this a few years ago when he had to buy a permit to cut down a dead tree in his yard.
As Tacitus said, “Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.”
I always felt “they” were doing everything possible to force me to close my doors. It seemed as if “they” (everything from workers comp to insurance to the city,state,feds) all had their hands out. As if that was not bad enough rules were always being changed that cost more money.
I felt they want to deal with a handful of large companies instead of 50 small ones. The large company can afford to hire people to make sure all rules and fees are followed and paid where the small guy is overwhelmed.
Politicians don't see it that way. They see a fixed size economy and the only way to get a bigger piece of it is to lie, cheat, steal, and manipulate.
Layers of lawyers!!
Ask a smoker about fear of offending;)
Sorting trash into color coded trash cans!
Seat belts!
And that’s just the small stuff.
Big government is man’s greatest weakness and our greatest enemy. We suffocate ourselves with it. I say kill it before it kills us.
That is brilliant insight - I never thought about it that way - exactly right!
A better description of they, would be parasitic paper pushing bureucrats who make a living by stealing the wages of the productive members of society.
The same predators who would happily cook the Goose that lays the golden eggs
You're right. The government doesn't like small business and big business doesn't like small business either.
Hope and change. Wasn't that what the insane communists wanted?
YES WE CAN (not)!
The problem with all these ‘laws’ and ‘regulations’ is that honest, hardworking REAL Americans (actual taxpayers) obey them. Obama’s constituents done pay them any nevermind because if you don’t have sh!t, you don’t give a sh!t. The other Obama ‘partners’, his elected cadre of Democrats don’t either, but they have something to value - only they use their influence to subvert the laws and regulations because they know they won’t be prosecuted.
1) All laws over 100 years old sunset in 10 years.
1a) Wanna keep 'em? Re-enact 'em. Most will die because they are stupid or outdated.
2) All laws over 50 years old sunset in five years.
2a) 1a) redux
3) Every law enacted from now on sunsets in five years.
The above will keep the pols so busy they won't have the time to enact new ones - and many useless laws, which might be twisted into new regulations, will disappear.
Somehow America has to move away from the idea that every aspect of our culture and our lives is imperfect and that local, state and federal legislatures and bureaucracies must “improve” them by constantly churning out new laws, dictates, edicts and regulations.
Most of the time rule makers are so short sighted that each unnecessary change they impose causes a multitude of unforeseen problems. And a great proportion of changes are really to address a demand by a group or an individual to carve out some kind of special treatment, subsidy or handout at the expense of others.
In general, legislative bodies and bureaucracies would serve America much better if they were required to spend twice as much time eliminating existing laws, regulations, etc. as they spend imposinmg new ones on us.
We have a collection of the largest group of Lawyers on this earth,Who work everyday to jamb the system with confusion.
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