The Price of Government Regulation

Some interesting points from this report on government regulation from the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

•  A very rough extrapolation from an estimate of the federal regulatory enterprise by economist Mark Crain estimates that regulatory compliance costs hit $1.172 trillion in 2008.
• Regulatory costs are equivalent to 65 percent of 2006 corporate pretax profits of $1.8 trillion.
• Regulatory costs rival estimated 2008 individual income taxes of $1.2 trillion.