Yes, you can; no, you can't: a rule for every move.

• Author: Weidenbaum, Murray
• Position: National Affairs - Business regulation - Essay

THE NATIONAL DEBATE on government policy focuses on taxation and spending programs. Little attention is given to the most extensive governmental power over business: regulation. It sounds so far away from the individual citizen. So, let me provide a special introduction. Here is a hypothetical scenario of government regulation and the average citizen; each action described below happens daily in the lives of Americans:

The morning alarm clock rings. John and Mary start another day in our regulatory soap opera--involving the alphabet soup of more than 30 Federal departments and agencies, as well as a full complement of state and local ordinances. The clock that awakens them is run by electricity provided by a utility overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and by state utility agencies.

John then goes to the bathroom, where he uses a mouthwash and other products made by companies regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He only mildly loses his temper trying to open the bottle of aspirin that has the child-proof cap required by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

In the kitchen, Mary reaches for a box of cereal containing food processed by a firm subject to inspection by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and required to label its product under regulations of the Federal Trade Commission. (FLY2). As John and Mary are pulling their cars out of the garage, the seat belt buzzer goes off (courtesy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA) when they fail to buckle up.

The cars they are driving to work contain a costly catalytic converter and many expensive safety devices (such as seat belts and shoulder harnesses) stipulated by either the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or NHTSA. The cars only can use a special blend of unleaded gasoline--another EPA requirement.

Mary enters the business office where she works, which is located in a building where the construction was delayed repeatedly until it met state and local building codes. She was hired after a suit accusing the firm of discrimination against women filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). During the course of the day, Mary provides information about the financial activities of her company to many government officials, especially investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Internal Revenue Service ORS).

In addition, Mary responds to numerous "requests" for information about current and previous employees from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBD, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Homeland Security (DHS). She also fills out a variety of statistical forms for the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the human resource office, she finds that she has lost her retirement benefits.

Like many other small companies, her employer recently terminated its pension plan because of the many requirements imposed by the IRS and the Department of labor.

John goes to the factory where he works under conditions negotiated by his union, which was chosen after a prolonged strike in an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). A government investigator also is checking for illegal immigrants at the factory. She is from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The cumbersome...