America Has Too Many Laws – An excess of restrictions has taken a real toll
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Either way, I don't like how things (hot takes from people, journalists, politicians businesses, whatever) are constantly framed as being pro/anti laws (or regulation). This seems to always at the end of the day serve "the elites" in one way or another: whether it's adding regulations to keep out competition from the little upstarts or getting rid of it to expand marketshare at the expense of consumer-harm.
Question should always be pointedly reframed as: do we have the "right" laws. Not as: do we have too many or too little. This ultimately means nothing and feels like a distraction from the bigger issues.
/end arm chair rant.
I'd favor an amendment placing a sunset clause on every statute, and no omnibuses, such that the legislature only has enough time in session to keep a finite set of laws in effect.
Watch out, murder statute sunsets tomorrow and the Congress is gridlocked! Why are they gridlocked? They can’t string together broad compromises without everyone suing over what constitutes an omnibus.
You get the Congress you vote for. If you need Congress to work together instead of acting like idiots, vote for people who will work together instead of acting like idiots. If you won't, this is the kind of Congress you get.
We haven't been feeling the pain because of the executive branch. But now Chevron is overturned...
(Also, murder is going to be against state laws even without federal ones, so this won't turn into the murder crisis that you suggest.)
You also get the people your country comes with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
> murder is going to be against state laws even without federal ones, so this won't turn into the murder crisis
Fair enough. There might be truth to bills passed without a supermajority having an automatic sunset. The benefit there being it could be rolled back retroactively.
That said, Congress loves a crisis. Having the existence of every Department, agency and court subject up for grabs if the Congress (or any legislative body) falls into temporary paralysis sounds like a good way to justify a coup.
The President and Congress are separate things.
Does the law hope to prevent people from causing harm, physical, financial, etc, to others or their property? Keep it.
Does the law aim to prevent people from harming themselves, excluding suicide? Toss it out, freedom. [i.e. heavy taxes on soda; mandatory helmets]. Some jurisdictions try to enumerate every little possible way a bad thing could happen and make it a fineable offense, and it comes off as very much "invasive HOA" energy
Does the law aim to indirectly incentivize particular behaviors for political goals? Toss it [i.e. some parts of California have fully failed permitting systems which prevent any new houses from being built whatsoever, which is great for the environment since all development has been permanently halted. the faulted law is gladly allowed to persist with the hidden political reason behind it]
Now as for monopolies I think we have entered a bizarre system of mostly duopolies. The OS duopoly. the cell phone duopoly. search engine duopoly. Streaming duopoly. Social media duopoly. the stock markets is a duopoly. our political system is a duopoly. coke and pepsi. and so on. what we do need on the point of looking out for the "little upstarts" is a very careful investigation of these duopolies to see if they are truly competing for all their worth, or if there's a backroom agreement on things. I believe tech is a little thicker on the backroom agreements
It's an easy argument to make for sure, and likely true-ish. It's fun to come up with examples of providing paper copies to each individual. But I don't need a paper copy, and I can't remember the last time I felt compelled to read a law, maybe never?
Does it matter that it's "it’s a federal crime to enter a post office while intoxicated"? Are these examples really what the author is concerned about?
"By federal decree, macaroni must have a diameter between 0.11 and 0.27 inches, while vermicelli must not be more than 0.06 inches in diameter."
That's fine with me, that just means there's consistency across a product... that seems almost absurd to take issue with.
There are some examples later on of abuses, but those strike me as abuses that if it wasn't one misapplied law, it would be another. The existence of law when someone makes a poor choice doesn't make the law the problem.
I feel like a lot of these calls are really just appeals for "reforms" that aren't there for me, they're there for those who already have an advantage over me in the legal process...
The point is this adds a burden to small producers, particularly upstarts, while giving anti-competitive avenues of action to incumbents. Even if you’re complying with the rule, there is a cost to proving compliance and dealing with regulators.
Why shouldn’t you be able to sell macaroni if your machinery isn’t precise enough to meet those tolerances every time? (And why is that the federal government’s business.)
Because there is a standard to what "macaroni" is?
Otherwise call it something else. You can still sell pasta.
Having standards for food is very nice for citizens. For me it makes cooking far easier knowing if something actually is what it says it is. It actually matters.
Do you really think the American public is better served by being protected from extra-thick or thin macaroni? What fraction of Americans know the difference between regulation-standard macaroni and other pasta?
> call it something else. You can still sell pasta
Sure. Too bad if you didn’t hire a lawyer before you started selling macaroni.
I have no idea what your other statement means.
Sure. But this is arbitrary.
The vermicelli definition doesn’t match Italy’s, for instance. So you’ve “protected” Americans from the competition of Italian producers who can’t pay to repackage.
> no idea what your other statement means
Point is I would love to have obscure definitions around what my product should be that arbitrarily match my current offerings. If anyone tries to compete I can put them out of business for making an honest mistake, or force them to have to market convolutedly. (Can’t be mac ‘n’ cheese if it isn’t made in a factory!)
I quite like this setup. It's nice to know the difference between cheese and "cheese product".
If you know. If you’re Kraft, you do this. If you’re making homemade mac ‘n’ cheese, you get a cease and desist from Kraft. (Or god forbid trying to sell Italian vermicelli.)
Let’s say your small producer can afford to hire a macaroni lawyer to figure out what’s going on. Who do you think is their regular client? How many could even pass conflicts? You may very well have no practicing macaroni lawyers in your state, which means you’re now getting someone reading the rules for the first time versus a team with warm contacts at the FDA and USDA.
Why would you believe this?
There is macaroni law [1]. (With a paywalled reference [2].) There is a macaroni trade association [3]. There are macaroni lawsuits [4].
It would be absurd for there not be lawyers who specialise in pasta/macaroni. (They're the same thing under federal law [5].) What would be less surprising is if they all work for the trade body and its members.
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/139.110
[2] https://www.aoac.org/official-methods-of-analysis/
[4] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/345...
[5] https://fdastorytime.com/2018/10/10/name-that-food-macaroni-...
> So you’ve “protected” Americans from the competition of Italian producers who can’t pay to repackage.
Any food producer who wants to export to the US already has to pay for a US-specific label, including ingredient list and nutritional info. In fact, that would be true for almost any other country as well.
And that's a good thing. If you can't even bother to print a label that tells the buyers what it's made of, in a language they can read, forget about it.
Nobody dies if someone's macaroni is thicker or thinner than another's.
> Any food producer who wants to export to the US already has to pay for a US-specific label
Plenty of imported foods don't do this. They're supposed to [1]. But as long as you stick to specialty stores, the trade association [2] is unlikely to go after you.
[1] https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...
Look I fully agree we need oversight for things like supplements and chemicals.
But macaroni?
Standards do that.
If you want to sell something like macaroni but doesn't fit the standard, you can, just call it something else.
How often do you switch macaroni brands?
The standard would apply to all, including whatever I buy.
Of course. You’re using consumer search costs as your argument for regulation. If you don’t switch brands, that cost is incurred less frequently. You’re using the brand, not the rule, as your filter.
I don't even have to search, that's the point. I know what the thing is based on the name, done. I cook, I know what the results are.
Yes, you're avoiding a search cost. That's your argument for standardising the name. You're choosing a measure of standardisation in exchange for restricted variety and a marginally-higher price. (Even if you don't perceive either.) The utility of standardised labelling is reduced consumer search costs.
If you aren't changing brands frequently, you aren't choosing based on the word "macaroni." You're choosing based on the brand. You now what Kraft macaroni (or whatever) tastes like. You don't know what any macaroni tastes like, because they all taste very different, because the thickness of a pasta is one among many variables in play.
In regulatory parlance macaroni = pasta [1].
[1] https://fdastorytime.com/2018/10/10/name-that-food-macaroni-...
And the thickness of it, no less. Not the ingredients. Not the nutritional content. The thickness.
This is almost certainly intentional. It reduces competition from imports since anyone who wants to distribute in America has to pay to repackage.
Like, sure, in theory it seems nice to have some limits on what sellers are allowed to call macaroni. But there's a huge cost to these laws/regulations that goes beyond just the actual cost of adhering to the law. In my opinion any time the government does anything to intervene in private affairs it ought to have much stronger justification than just "wouldn't it be nice if..."
And who do you think are the macaroni lawyers’ largest clients?
The purpose of this rule is to ensure only certain people can produce macaroni.
You keep saying that, is it true?
I have a huge variety of macaroni and pasta options at my local store, made by all sorts of different suppliers, including small local businesses...
Yes. Specifically for Italian pastas. There is an import/export lobby that benefits from disparate labelling requirements. It came up during the pandemic around bucatini, which the FDA considers a macaroni product [1].
Of course, none of this matters if you can afford it. Plenty of Italian producers will ship you food labelled as furniture. But that is expensive since to set up.
Every supermarket food has layers of these compliance costs built into the price.
[1] https://www.grubstreet.com/2020/12/2020-bucatini-shortage-in...
Oddly enough, there's a ton of De Cecco and Bucatini at my local grocery store.... conspiracy over?
You asked for a source, couldn't manage to read it, couldn't manage to have it even summarised for you into simpler English and concluded conspiracy.
And yes, the shortage is over. But the article goes into why there was a shortage in America. And it had to do with requirements around macaroni products.
On a certain level, the current system works. Supermarkets serve industrial food that can be sold at a solid profit. Those profits pay some people more who can then buy a greater variety of food for cheaper than is broadly available. Win win.
De Cecco is not an unknown brand fighting against some massive conspiracy. They've been in the US for a long time ... I really don't think it supports your theory. De Cecco has been one of the brands I buy often for, I honestly don't even know how long, seems like forever.
> Why shouldn’t you be able to sell macaroni if your machinery isn’t precise enough to meet those tolerances every time?
The level of precision needed to consistently meet those tolerances is less than the precision of the extruders in a Play-Doh Fun Factory that you might find in a typical preschool.
It cost at least 5 lives from easily preventable accidents and is filled with asbestos (which likely killed many many more from lung cancer). is this the state people want to return to?
Sadly, some of them do. Some of them are even in government and their whole aim is to unravel all the standards and protections we've built up for good reason.
There is a lot of middle ground between these extremes [1].
Manhattan’s current zoning rules, for example, almost require luxury housing only.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...
In only the most technical sense. Practically speaking, reducing the set of restrictions from laws, narrowly-constructed rules and broadly-constructed rules to just the first two will reduce restrictions. (I personally believe most of those restrictions are valid. But there are good arguments for and against Chevron.)
Why is that?
> A 24-year-old who downloads academic articles that don’t belong to him isn’t just reprimanded; now we threaten him with decades in federal prison.
I would say that he, at least, covers it.
Specific examples of bizarre, or outdated laws serve no one, and do not reveal an underlying problem other than some legislature hasn't gotten around to dumping outdated, or bizarre laws.
There's a good case to be made for rationalizing the number of laws, but merely focusing on the sheer size of the federal code and pulling out a few silly examples doesn't even come close to having a serious discussion on the topic.
Then they passed the tax bill. My taxes went up, Trump's went down, and everyone forgot about the postcard. Go figure.
Today's Form 1040 [3] is somewhere in the middle. The form itself has 38 lines, and the numbered schedules have been consolidated from 6 to 3.
[1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f1040--2017.pdf
You should probably elect lower tax candidates to your state office so you can deduct more of your state taxes.
Maybe the book delves into that, but I saw nothing of that in the article.
Probably one of the biggest impediments to addressing this is that Congress is horribly broken, (not by accident). I'd go further there but it's inherently political and I don't want to risk the wrath of @dang.
Being ruled by law is a good thing, and many regulations are written in blood. We need to find ways to hold on to the "good parts" and trim away the rest. My techie take would be that using AI to analyze/summarize the legal code, case history of the application of same, and game theory to evaluate the efficacy and "justness" of the codes. Easy peasy, right?
Was that an artificial insemination joke?
The school of thought that Gorsuch and others subscribe to is one where the US was basically supposed to be an extension of 18th-century England, just without the Crown. This was more-or-less how the antebellum south was set up. You had peasants living in housing provided by the landed gentry in exchange for the outputs of their labor at enterprises that are held by the landed gentry. The landed gentry is the landed gentry because a higher power anointed them to be so, or because social Darwinism simply selected them as such. Those who oppose this are thus opposed to nature and cannot be entertained, much less allowed to wield the power of the state to protect what they see to be their rights.
Now replace "peasant" with "working class" and "landed gentry" with "investors". Ta-da. You have the ideal system in these people's minds for the modern world.
Gorsuch wrote Bostock, the opinion granting LGBT Americans protection from workplace discrimination [1][2].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bostock_v._Clayton_County
[2] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
That's thousands of years old wisdom. The government should serve the people, not the other way around.
You know there's a problem when even your lawyers friend complain about the state of things.