If it were your full-time job, it would take three years, 108 days, and four hours to read all the federal regulations currently on the books. That
assumes you read at 250 words per minute and stay on task for 40 hours a week with just two weeks off for vacation each year.
According to the Mercatus Center study, that’s a dramatic increase in regulation over the past several decades. In 1970, you could have read all the federal regulations in about a year.
Earlier Numbers of the Day also highlighted the enormous growth of the regulatory state in recent decades. After adjusting for inflation, the federal budget for regulatory agencies is nine times as high as it was in 1970 — a current total of $70 billion. The nation currently has 283,996 federal regulators. That’s twice as many as in 1990 and five times as many as in 1960.
Each weekday, Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day explores interesting and newsworthy topics at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology. Columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.
Scott Rasmussen is founder and president of the Rasmussen Media Group. He is the author of "Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement Is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System," "In Search of Self-Governance," and "The People’s Money: How Voters Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt." Read more reports from Scott Rasmussen — Click Here Now.
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