Don't Believe Everything You Hear
Bureaucracy has tremendous inertia. You need a plan to tame it.
Project 2025 is nothing like what Biden says it is
Project 2025 is more like a set of historic GOP talking points (e.g., eliminate the Department of Education), wrapped in a plan to counter the natural resistance of the civil service for which the party was unprepared in Trump’s first term. The amount of resistance and the manner in which it is being demonized is telling of the implications it has for the interests of the bureaucratic elite.
‘The Heritage Foundation launched Project 2025 as a presidential transition project to ensure that the next conservative president was ready to govern effectively on his first day in office without being weighed down by staffing shortages and a resistant bureaucracy.
‘For Biden and the Democratic Party, such a prospect is so terrifying that it is now the centerpiece of the presidential campaign, despite the fact that former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, is not involved in any aspect of the project.
‘Still, the project only exists because the myriad of personnel pitfalls that befell Trump’s first term in office exposed the degree to which conservatives were unprepared to take control of a bureaucratic apparatus filled with liberal career staff that resisted any attempts to implement conservative policy.’
Privacy and the Double-Bureaucracy Redux
Author describes his problems with Ticketmaster who withhold his money because he won’t give up his social security number, even though his transaction falls below a reportable limit. Then, after Ticketmaster falls victim to a data hack, they offer him free credit services from TransUnion, as compensation for losing the data he did disclose. He calls it “metastasis.” That’s one word for it.
‘Full of meta-commentary about the experiences of elites and plebes, my post, The Double Bureaucracy vs. Privacy, recounted how Ticketmaster was holding a small amount of my money—proceeds from selling tickets at a loss—because I was not giving the company my Social Security number (SSN). “Let that sink in for a moment,” I wrote, “Ticketmaster . . . SSN. Duck . . . bicycle.” There is an elaborate system of incentives, I surmised, that drives entities like Ticketmaster to demand this information, though my transactions that year weren’t reportable even under the IRS’s current intrusive transaction reporting regime.’
This week in ridiculous regulations: Watermelon taxes and crash test dummies
The scale of the statistics that AEI reports regarding new regulation out of DC is staggering. It’s difficult to internalize. It’s like trying to count the number of dollar bills one would need to stack to get from earth to the moon.
· ‘Agencies issued 49 final regulations last week, after 49 the previous week.
· That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every three hours and 26 minutes.
· With 1,654 final regulations so far in 2024, agencies are on pace to issue 3,086 final regulations this year.
· For comparison, there were 3,018 new final regulations in 2023, 3,168 in 2022, and 3,257 in 2021.
· Agencies issued 24 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 23 the previous week.
· With 927 proposed regulations so far in 2024, agencies are on pace to issue 1,729 proposed regulations this year.
· For comparison, there were 2,102 proposed regulations in 2023, 2,044 in 2022, and 2,094 in 2021.
· Agencies published 472 notices last week, after 349 notices the previous week.
· With 12,497 notices so far in 2024, agencies are on pace to issue 23,315 notices this year.
· For comparison, there were 22,902 notices in 2023, 22,505 in 2022, and 20,018 in 2021.
· Last week, 1,553 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,455 pages the previous week.
· The average Federal Register issue in 2024 contains 428 pages.
· With 57,338 pages so far, the 2024 Federal Register is on pace for 106,974 pages.
· For comparison, the 2023 Federal Register totals 90,402 pages, the 2022 Federal Register has 80,756 pages, and 2021’s is 74,352 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (subtracting skips, jumps, and blank pages) is 96,994, set in 2016.
· Rules with $200 million or more of economic effects in at least one year qualify as major under Section 3(f)(1). This replaces the former economically significant tag for $100 million-plus regulations. There are 13 such rules so far in 2024, with none in the last week.’
Why the Court’s CFPB Decision Is Correct and Important
This will make end-runs around Congress more difficult.
‘In its 7-2 majority opinion in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) v. Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSAA), the Supreme Court held that Congress may provide indefinite funding outside the annual appropriations process to federal regulatory agencies. That holding is correct and important. Although placing time limits on agency funding is generally a good idea, the Constitution does not require it, and concluding otherwise could have opened the door to biased and erratic court decisions in the future.’
Two Neglected Effects of Loper Bright
Inconsistent interpretations of the law should become less of an issue with Loper. Also, the controversial major questions doctrine may no longer be relevant.
‘The Loper Bright opinion has two other important effects that have not yet received the attention that they deserve. First, it reduces the problems created by the massive increase in flip-flopping that our extremely polarized political environment has produced. Second, it eliminates any justification for continued application of the powerful new version of the major questions doctrine that the Court created in 2021 and has now applied in four cases. ‘