How to Truly Stop Government Overreach-End Regulation

A constant complaint we have all heard for years is that there is too much money in politics, especially so-called “dark money.” We see so-called “special interests,” particularly business leaders, dumping money into political campaigns to manipulate elections.

And frankly, I don’t blame them.

After all, our own government spends much of their time regulating businesses, and thus regulating our lives. Why should businesses endure regulation and not have a say in it?

In addition, we hear complaints about how government regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration are run by the people they are supposed to regulate… in essence, the rats watching the cheese. Yet, this is nothing new. Indeed, we have been living with insider regulation for over 100 years. And they do this to shut out competition for the benefit of the big businesses they represent.

When the Pure Food and Drug Act was promulgated in 1906, the hot-button issue was that of false labeling. But that was just a red herring. Entrenched food businesses were pushing to stop cheap competition, such as the “adulteration” of food with glucose, or the use of sawdust as a thickener in products like relish.[1] The push to legislate against such things was from what we today call “big food” in an effort to protect themselves from aggressive competitors. Propaganda regarding conditions in the meat packing industry was used to push the call for regulations over the top.[2]

In 1932, former U.S. Solicitor General and Congressman from Pennsylvania James Beck, penned the book Our Wonderland of Bureaucracy, in which he castigated the growth of federal regulatory agencies that were running out of control. For example, he wrote about the then-Bureau of Home Economics (part of the Department of Agriculture) issuing over 160 pamphlets “to tell the American citizen how to live,” describing such things as how to button clothes and what to wear in what weather. Beck asks, “is it possible that the American boy cannot button his trousers without government aid?”[3]

And this in 1932.

Samuel B. Pettengill, a Democrat Congressman from Indiana in the 1930s (yes…a Democrat) wrote Smoke Screen in 1940, arguing that the United States was well on the road to National Socialism… i.e. Nazism. He ends his book by stating that these developments “must be startling to readers who have had neither time, nor opportunity to attempt to keep pace with the revolutionary ideas flooding the Nation’s capital city….”[4] Pettengill doesn’t use the “Nazi” label as hyperbole, as he clearly defines it as the creation of government granted monopolies for the benefit of big business.[5]

And this in 1940.

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, in his “Notes on Virginia,” wrote that “the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war [i.e. the Revolution] we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect (sic) a due respect for their rights.”[6]

And this in 1786.

We are in deep, serious trouble, far deeper than we imagine. It took us over 100 years to get into this mess, and it may take us 100 years to get out of it. If a politician is truly serious about protecting our rights, then he must push to end regulations on businesses, thus reviving the Founders’ dream.

Freedom and liberty are about living with risk, and if we wish to be free, we must learn to live with risk.

 

Russ Rodgers has several books published on Amazon.

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[1] Interestingly enough, we are today hearing complaints about how “big food” is using things like cellulose (i.e. wood pulp) in our food. Wasn’t government regulation supposed to stop such practices?

[2] One can read about the entire sordid affair, and other big government issues, in Gabriel Kolko’s book, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916. New York: The Free Press, 1963.

[3] James M. Beck, Our Wonderland of Bureaucracy: A Study of the Growth of Bureaucracy in the Federal Government and its Destructive Effect Upon the Constitution. New York: The MacMillian Co., 1932, p. 76.

[4] Samuel B. Pettengill, Smoke-Screen. New York: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1940, p. 114.

[5] Ibid., p. 106.

[6] Thomas Jefferson, “Republican Notes on Religion and an Act Establishing Religious Freedom, 1786.”