VIDEO: See the Growth of Federal Regulations

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It’s one thing to talk about how the massive growth of federal regulations are choking the life out of the economy.

Senior Research Fellow Patrick McLaughlin at the George Mason University’s Mercatus Center demonstrates the growth of federal regulation in the United States since 1950 by stacking books from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). (The red and black colors do not signify anything relevant to this demonstration. The federal government releases partial updates to the CFR on a quarterly basis and changes the color from one year to the next.)

It’s another to actually SEE this growth with your own eyes. Check out this video explaining how much the federal government has exploded regulations over the last 70 years.

Book stacks for 1950, 1970, and 1990 are represented using the average size volume in 2013, which is roughly 750 pages long. Stack size is calculated by dividing the page count in those years by 750 pages. The data for page counts in the CFR comes from https://www.federalregister.gov/uploa…

It’s really eye-opening.