Want to Fight Federal Over-reach? Start Here
When the House of Representatives last week voted for the “BULB Act”—a proposal its sponsors said would lift a coming federal ban on incandescent light bulbs—plenty of Tea Party supporters and others rejoiced at a major victory for limited government. Plenty of others, it's true, had fair criticisms of it but, personally, I would have voted for the BULB Act as a way of striking back against government overreach. That said, the attention the bill has received as a touchstone of conservative governance (the organization I work for supported it very loudly) shows just how far off track the conservative regulatory policy agenda has gone and how Republicans have let symbolic actions substitute for real achievements.
Let’s start with some facts about light-bulbs: There is not and never was an outright ban on incandescent light bulbs although, over time, new federal standards would likely have made them uneconomical to produce. That said, there are few reasons why anybody should want an old fashioned light bulb anyway. They are inefficient and people who discard them in favor of newer technology will save lots of money on their electrical bills. That said the standard small-l liberal assumption in favor of freedom means government has no business restricting the sale of things that aren’t horrifically dangerous (like anthrax) or intrinsically harmful to others (like child pornography). Thus, the consequences of the new light bulb regulations seem about as consequential as bans on horseshoes or slide-rules would be. In time, market demand will eliminate old-style bulbs whatever happens. And that's why the federal government shouldn't have issued the new regulations in the first place.
But, in the grand scheme of things, the BULB Act--which actually just forbade the funding of new regulations for a year rather than eliminating them--is trivial. In the past year alone, the Department of Education has issued rules that turn college campus judicial systems into kangaroo courts for anyone accused of sexual harassment, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has established a purchasing process for medical equipment that seems likely to limit seniors access to state-of-the-art medical devices, and the Food and Drug Administration has denied consumers access to hundreds of potentially lifesaving drugs. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. State regulations, in many cases, are even worse than those on the federal level. Nearly every state along the ocean, for example, uses its regulatory sway over water use and insurance prices to subsidize development along the coast at enormous cost to inland consumers and the natural environment. Local governments can and do get even more intrusive: they order people to paint their houses certain colors and use certain types of patio furniture. All of these regulations have much higher costs in dollars and freedom than a semi-ban on a product line that's basically useless anyway.
Fighting these types of regulations may not have the same sort of populist appeal as a jihad against nanny-state efforts to decide what kinds of light bulbs Americans buy and, of course, they aren’t subject to the same type of black-and-white media friendly presentation. For example, no matter how many problems the FDA causes, there’s certainly a legitimate government role in regulating pharmaceuticals. But the overall regulatory state is far too big and produces for too many negative consequences. If Republicans really want to prove their small government bona fides, they need to get down to the hard work of real, consequential regulatory reform.
