AUSTIN – The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Vice President for Policy Chuck DeVore authors an article in yesterday’s Investor’s Business Daily titled “Congress Must Curb The ‘Soft Tyranny’ Of Bureaucrats.”

DeVore writes: “On January 28, America will hear the president deliver his annual State of the Union address to Congress. The president will, no doubt, call for a larger role of government in our daily lives. More government is the last thing Americans need. The late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., observed, ‘The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.’ He said this in 1979 when the Code of Federal Regulations contained about 30,000 rules. Today, the federal government has more than 180,000 rules.” 

DeVore continued, “Unfortunately, soft tyranny came back vigorously to new highs after the Democrats won back the House and the Senate in 2006 election followed by President Obama’s victory. Reducing federal soft tyranny must begin with cutting red tape and those who make it. Congress must reassert its authority, taking back the enormous grants of power they have lent to the unelected professionals of the administrative state. Cutting the regulatory bureaucracy in half; limiting the number of new Federal Register pages to 20,000 per year and reducing federal spending as a share of the economy by only 1 percent would return federal soft tyranny to where it was in 2001, 1988 or 1970 and before. 

“Significantly paring the sphere of government power – its soft tyranny – would boost the sphere of individual liberty. It would also serve as a powerful tonic for American prosperity and competitiveness.”

The article can be read in its entirety here: http://bit.ly/1gG21s9. To schedule a media appearance with Chuck DeVore contact Kristen Indriago at[email protected] or 512.472.2700.

 

The Honorable Chuck DeVore is the Vice President for Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He served six years in the California Assembly and is the author of “The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America.”

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

  

Primary website: www.TexasPolicy.com

Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/TexasPublicPolicyFoundation

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