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Free to Prosper: Banking and finance
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Free to Prosper: Artificial intelligence
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Free to Prosper: Labor and employment
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Free to Prosper: Civil asset forfeiture
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Free to Prosper: Online speech
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Free to Prosper: Inflation
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Free to Prosper: Introduction
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Free to Prosper: Antitrust
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Free to Prosper: Trade
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Chapter 5: Regulatory dark matter: Executive orders and memoranda
Although executive actions ostensibly deal with the internal operations of the federal government, they increasingly can have binding effect and influence private behavior. Executive orders,…
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Chapter 6: More than 22,000 agency public notices annually
Along with the few dozen presidential memoranda and other proclamations are the thousands that issue from departments and agencies. Through various species of guidance documents,…
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Chapter 13: Needed: An agenda for rightsizing Washington
Rule counts regularly topped 4,000 in the 1990s. That is the wrong comparison for Biden’s lower rule counts. His fewer rules have higher costs, are…
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Chapter 4: The expanding Code of Federal Regulations
The page count in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)—where the Federal Register’s rules come to rest in small print in bound volumes of magenta,…
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Chapter 7: A note on rule reviews at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Yesterday’s rule review, where the review authority sought to restrain government intervention and minimize costs, is different from today’s rule review. Now the would-be overseer…
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Chapter 12: The 2024 Unconstitutionality Index: 44 rules for every law
Article I of the Constitution notwithstanding, administrative agencies rather than Congress do most of the lawmaking in the United States. Congress enacts weighty legislation but…
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Chapter 10: Federal regulations affecting state and local governments
State and local officials’ concerns over federal mandates’ overriding their own priorities and prerogatives resulted in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, the requirements…
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Chapter 11: Government Accountability Office database on rules and major rules
The federal government’s regulatory reports and databases serve different purposes. The Federal Register presents all proposed and final rules affecting the private sector, as well…
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Chapter 2: Why we need a regulatory budget
Well before Biden’s unique transformations, policymakers recognized a role for regulatory restraint, transparency, and disclosure. Federal programs are funded either by taxes or by borrowing,…
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Chapter 8: The “Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions”
Along with the Report to Congress, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations, another vehicle for regulatory disclosure is the spring and fall editions of…
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Chapter 9: Federal regulations affecting small business
The aforementioned National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) report found that average annual per-employee regulatory costs to firms vary by firm size in a way that…
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Chapter 3: Page counts and numbers of rules in the Federal Register
The Federal Register is the daily repository of all proposed and final federal rules and regulations. Although its number of pages is often cited as…
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Chapter 1: Biden’s whole-of-government regulatory philosophy
Prior editions of Ten Thousand Commandments extensively surveyed the Biden administration’s whole-of-government campaigns and the role of executive actions, rules, and memoranda in their pursuit.
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Chapter 5: Page Counts and Numbers of Rules in the Federal Register
The Federal Register is the daily repository of all proposed and final federal rules and regulations. Although its number of pages is often cited as…
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Chapter 3: Getting Beyond a Federal Regulatory Budget and the Limitations of Administrative Reform
Federal programs are funded either by taxes or by borrowing, with interest, from future tax collections. When Congress spends, no one questions that disclosure…
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Chapter 6: The Expanding Code of Federal Regulations
The page count in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), where the Register’s rules come to rest in small print, is not as dramatic…
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Chapter 9: A Note on Rule Reviews at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Tracking the effects of rules and regulations, executive orders, memoranda, and regulatory guidance is vital. These alternative regulatory actions have become powerful means of working…
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Chapter 13: Federal Regulations Affecting State and Local Governments
Ten Thousand Commandments primarily emphasizes federal regulations imposed on the private sector. However, state and local officials’ complaints over federal mandates’ overriding their own…
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Chapter 1: Biden’s Regulatory “Modernization” Continues Whole-of-Government Pursuit of Coercive Progressivism
The 2022 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments extensively surveyed the Biden administration’s executive actions, rules, and memoranda that reversed the Trump regulatory policy and attenuated…
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Chapter 10: Analysis of “The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions”
“The Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” (the Unified Agenda) is the document in which agencies have outlined regulatory priorities…
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Chapter 8: Another Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Over 22,000 Agency Public Notices Annually
Along with presidential proclamations are those of departments and agencies. These are numerous and sweeping. Through various kinds of guidance documents, notices, and policy statements,…
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Chapter 15: Regulation without Representation: The “Unconstitutionality Index”—13 Rules for Every Law
Administrative agencies, not Congress, do most U.S. lawmaking, despite Article I of the Constitution stipulating otherwise. Congress is to blame here, as it routinely enacts…
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Chapter 4: The Unknowable Costs of Regulation and Intervention and a $1.939 Trillion Estimate
The federal government undertakes little review of federal regulation to ensure that regulations individually do more good than bad each year, and it performs no…
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Executive Summary – Ten Thousand Commandments 2023
The cost of government extends well beyond what Washington taxes. Federal regulations add another $1.939 trillion to Americans’ annual burden. Federal environmental, safety and health,…
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Chapter 2: Competition Policy That Exiles Competitive Enterprise Harms Equity
Biden has repeatedly claimed, “I’m a capitalist.” He also rightly says that capitalism without competition is “exploitation.” However the top-down vision Biden promotes, which is…
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Chapter 11: Notable Rules and Rulemakings by Agency
In recent Unified Agenda editions and in other venues, federal agencies have noted the regulatory initiatives listed below, among many others pending or recently completed.
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Chapter 14: Government Accountability Office Database on Regulations
The federal government’s reports and databases on regulations serve different purposes: The Federal Register details and depicts the aggregate number of proposed and final rules—both…
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Chapter 16: Liberate to Stimulate: Framing an Agenda for Rightsizing Washington
It should be hard to enact bad law and regulation, not to get rid of them. A whole-of-government spending and regulatory agenda like the one…
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Chapter 12: Federal Regulations Affecting Small Business
Given discrepancies seen in the final rule counts, the overall counts of both small business rules and significant small business rules could also be understated.
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Chapter 7: The Presidential Dimension of Regulatory Dark Matter: Executive Orders and Memoranda
Executive orders, presidential memoranda, presidential directives, ersatz fact sheets of recent administrations, and other executive proclamations make up a substantial component of what has replaced…
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Free to Prosper: Infrastructure Permitting Reform
In the midst of an economic crisis that has seen American families squeezed at the pump and in their home electricity bills, America needs to…
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Corporate Governance
Retirement Security Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which governs private pensions, in 1974, in response to widespread concerns at the time…
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Free to Prosper: Civil Asset Forfeiture
Civil asset forfeiture is a controversial tool used by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to seize cash, vehicles, houses, or other property that…
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Free to Prosper: Antitrust
Efforts to expand the scope and enforcement of antitrust law are playing out on a global scale and, so far, have mostly targeted large technology…
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Free to Prosper: Broadband Connectivity
Improved Internet connectivity is essential to reduce socioeconomic inequality at home and to improve America’s global economic competitiveness abroad. Recent increases in broadband investment and…
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Free to Prosper: Labor and Employment
With employers struggling to fill open positions and supply chains still playing catchup, federal employment policy needs to adapt to new economic realities rather than…
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Free to Prosper: Trade
Trade policy took a turn for the worse during the Trump administration, and the Biden administration has committed largely to the same course. Tariffs have…
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Free to Prosper: Environment, Energy, and Climate
President Biden campaigned on a promise to “end fossil fuel.” Some dismissed it at the time as rhetorical bluster. We now know he was serious.
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Free to Prosper: Online Speech and Section 230
Section 230 of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996 governs liability online. It clarifies that the creator of speech, not its carrier, bears legal responsibility…
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Free to Prosper: Transportation
Mobility for both people and goods is one of a modern economy’s most important needs. The COVID-19 pandemic changed our transportation patterns considerably and put…
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Free to Prosper: Banking and Finance
Access to safe and reliable financial services is fundamental to Americans’ prosperity. However, since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, regulators have used…