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| Behavioral economics—the governing theory of Obama's nanny state. |
| 2010-04-16 |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 Among the many transformative experiences President Obama says he has planned for us, one in particular has gone relatively unnoticed. He has vowed to remake the methods by which the federal government regulates our homes, our offices, our roads and brooms and thimbles, our roller skates and garden tools and tortilla chips and sunglasses—nearly everything. The federal government regulates nearly everything already, of course, but now the new administration wants to regulate by different lights. A few days after taking office last year, Obama signed a presidential memorandum to set our new transformative experience in motion. The memorandum began by noting that federal regulatory policy has lately been governed by an executive order issued in 1993. Political activists disliked the old order—EO 12866, as it’s known among regulation buffs—because they saw it as a hindrance to new and ever more sweeping regulations. EO 12866 made the job of regulating difficult by requiring a federal agency to perform onerous cost-benefit analyses on each regulation it proposed and to rework the rules that proved too costly. In his memorandum, the president suggested that this approach, while perhaps well-meaning, was the product of a less sophisticated, pre-Obama era. “A great deal has been learned since that time,” he wrote. “Far more is now known about regulation—not only about when it is justified, but also about what works and what does not. . . . In this time of fundamental transformation, that process—and the principles governing regulation in general—should be revisited.” |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2010-04-16 08:23 |