Congressional Digest

Excerpt

The Federal Register is the daily depository of all proposed and final Federal rules and regulations. When it was first published on March 16, 1936, it was a modest, 16-page booklet; the December 30, 2016, edition contained 97,110 pages — an all-time record. These numbers are often cited as way to measure the growth of the Federal bureaucracy, but they don’t give the full picture. Short rules can have a substantial impact on policy or the economy, while lengthy ones can be routine in nature and impose little, if any, regulatory burden. And while some argue that regulation stifles business…