Tyler Cowen has updated his proposals for an agenda for the Bush second term. I commented on his original post here. Mr. Cowen’s proposal:
I will add one additional proposal:
13. Cut the number of pages in the daily Federal Register by half.
The American economy is drastically overregulated. But do not get me wrong here. I do not wish to gut important environmental regulations, many of which supply valuable public goods.
I agree with him completely and wonder how any reasonable person can disagree. However, as with his other proposals, the question remains how can we get there?
Many years ago my dad, the wisest man I’ve ever known, had a simple suggestion: the Constitution should be amended to prohibit air conditioning in all Congressional offices and meeting places and in all federal offices in Washington, DC. Have you ever been there in the summertime? That would do it.
A man who visited my father when I was a kid suggested that the laws are too complicated, and his solution was to require that whenever Congress passes a new law they must repeal an old one at the same time. And, since there are so many old laws already on the books, for the next 100 years or so they must repeal *two* laws for each new one they pass.
A science fiction story by Christopher Anvil mentioned a Council of Dunces. As I remember it, they were chosen by lot from among all the citizenry excluding only people whose IQs were above 110 and people who had had legal training. For each new law, the Council would confirm that it could be unambiguously understood by people of average intelligence. If not they would veto it.