Fight Government Corruption With Deregulation

Reason cited CEI’s expert on regulatory budgets

“When regulatory systems become dense, opaque, and discretionary, they create perverse incentives for corruption,” Steve Swedberg, a regulatory expert, recently observed for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Because corruption is the abuse of public power for private gain, limiting the discretionary power that officials wield is one of the most effective ways to prevent it.”

Swedberg recommends sunsetting regulations—letting them expire after a set time period—and starting from the assumption that rules must be periodically re-justified or else erased from the books. He also wants to limit the costs regulators are allowed to impose on businesses with regulatory budgets.

But whatever the approach used to achieve regulatory reform, anybody concerned about politicians taking payoffs and the rising levels of corruption they see around them needs to consider the culpability of the bureaucratic state. If we want less corruption, we need smaller, less intrusive government.

Read more at Reason