An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State
The federal government primarily funds its programs in three ways. The first is to raise taxes to pay for new programs. The second is to borrow money to pay for them (with a promise to pay back that borrowed money, with interest, from taxes collected in the future). No matter how controversial government spending programs can be, taxpayers can always see how much programs cost by looking at the federal budget, and Congress can be held accountable for programs that are controversial. While not perfect, such accountability is a fundamental, necessary condition for controlling government.
The third way the government can accomplish its goals is to regulate. That is, rather than pay directly and book the expense of a new initiative, it can require that the private sector and lower-level governments pay. By regulating, the government can carry out desired programs but avoid using tax dollars to fund them. This process sometimes allows Congress to escape accountability and to blame agencies for costs. Since disclosure and accountability for regulation are limited, policymakers have little incentive to care about the extent of regulatory costs or where those costs stand in relation to ordinary government spending. Regulatory costs are unbudgeted and lack the formal presentation to the public and media to which ordinary federal spending is subject, and thus regulatory initiatives allow the government to direct private-sector resources to a significant degree without much public fuss. In that sense, regulation can be thought of as off-budget taxation.
The purpose of Ten Thousand Commandments is accountability. Every year Wayne Crews rearches and writes Ten Thousand Commandments to hold government officals accountable for the costs they pass on to the American taxpayers.
The goal is Transparency.
President Barack Obama’s federal budget for fiscal year (FY) 2010 proposed $3.552 trillion in discretionary, entitlement, and interest spending. The previous fiscal year, President George W. Bush had proposed the first-ever $3-trillion U.S. budget. President Bush was also the first to propose a $2-trillion federal budget—in 2002, a scant seven years ago.
Now the administration projects actual FY 2009 spending of almost $4 trillion ($3.938 trillion) instead of Bush’s $3 trillion, thanks to the late-2008 bailout and “stimulus” frenzy. The result: a projected FY 2009 deficit of a previously unthinkable $1.752 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paints an even more dismal picture.
To be sure, many other countries’ governments consume more of their national output than the U.S. government does; but in absolute terms, the U.S. government is the largest government on Earth, whether one looks at revenues or expenditures.
Check out CEI's Ten Thousand Commandments video below:
Study Archives
