Marco Rubio - 'We need to grow government in order to shrink government'

You must grow government to shrink it

• Only in Washington would Rubio's proposal make any sense.
• Rubio's plan admits that Congress is totally incapable of taking any meaningful action of their own and must have 3rd party agencies do the work. 

GOP Senator Marco Rubio called Monday for the establishment of a brand new layer of government with lots of staff, offices, government cars and expense accounts.  This new government agency will magically somehow shrink government.

I tried not to laugh while I read his idea.

Rubio wants a “national regulatory budget” to keep in check costs associated with the accumulation of rules on the books at agencies across the federal government.

That regulatory code needs a taste of its own medicine,” Rubio said in the speech, hosted by Google Inc. and the Jack Kemp Foundation. “It needs to be restrained and restricted.”

Under Rubio’s plan, a brand new independent board would be created to set a national regulatory budget, which would aggregate the costs of all existing federal rules and put caps in place for each agency.

If the total exceeded levels set out in the budget, agencies would need to repeal or rework regulations.

“This would force federal agencies to enact only those regulations that truly serve an essential role,” Rubio said.

In essence, the system would require the government to remove old regulations before adding new ones.

The approach is far from novel. For years, critics of the current regulatory system have floated the idea of a one-in, one-out for rule-writing agencies, or an independent agency — akin to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — to weigh the costs and benefits of regulations.

“Washington has put up a blockade of restrictions and regulations and taxes that prevent innovators from accessing the full range of opportunities offered by the American free enterprise system,” Rubio said. 

Read more: The Hill.
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2003 - A Blast from the Past Cartoon
A "small government" GOP controlled Congress shoves Federalized national
health care down the throats of the taxpayers.

2004 - A Blast from the Past Cartoon