Pennsylvania ranks #14 in regulatory burden in the nation

(The Center Square) — Less burdensome regulation has led to economic growth in some states, but Pennsylvania lags far behind.

A report has pointed out that as the EU’s population and employment levels decline, the bureaucratically burdened system will create even more problems in the future.

Nationally, Pennsylvania is 14th most regulated stateaccording to an analysis by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

With more than 164,000 regulatory restrictions, the state focuses more than other states on areas such as the environment, arts and culture, and government — but much less on areas such as health care, banking, insurance and securities.

But Pennsylvania wasn’t the worst of its overloaded neighbors. New York and New Jersey ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, Ohio was No. 6 and Maryland was No. 21. West Virginia wasn’t ranked in the study.

“Jurisdictions that allow regulation to accumulate steadily over time experience slower economic growth, but this effect can be reversed when policymakers actively reduce red tape,” argue Patrick McLaughlin and Dustin Chambers of the Mercatus Center. “Policymakers can reduce the harm from overregulation by improving the governance of their rulemaking systems, thereby increasing the likelihood that regulations actually solve the problems they were intended to solve.”

Although right-wing thinkers and politicians are more likely to talk about excessive regulation and the need to cut red tape, Mercatus pointed to an example of left-wing success: British Columbia, Canada.

They credit leaders with a pioneering role in getting rid of bureaucracy.

“The rate of economic growth increased by one percentage point as regulations were cut by almost 40%,” McLaughlin and Chambers argued. “Several U.S. states have tried to follow suit, including Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Virginia.”

There were Republicans in Pennsylvania too condemn regulatory burden while Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has made progress in making reform possible to simplify bureaucracy and avoid delays.

To improve Pennsylvania’s ranking among overly regulated institutions, a retrial may be necessary.

“The bottom line for me is that even if you do the best job you can writing the rules, thinking about unintended consequences, you still shouldn’t leave things on the books unexamined,” McLaughlin said. “Does your state have a process in place in five or 10 years to look back and see if something worked? You can’t leave it on autopilot.”

To do that, the report recommended that state leaders consider regulatory budgets — which limit the number of regulations that can be on the books — and regulatory sunsets, which remove regulations unless they are renewed by the legislature.

Change also happens when regulatory agencies encourage better work, not more regulation.

When McLaughlin worked for the U.S. Department of Transportation, he said he received a plaque recognizing him for creating a new rule. But when his team decided not to create a new rule because they felt it would create a lot of costs without much benefit, they didn’t get the award.

“There’s no incentive for us to (stop a bad new rule), there’s no reward for doing that,” McLaughlin said. “If you work in this agency, if you want to stand out and get promoted, you respond to incentives and you create new rules.”

If leaders don’t reward workers for abandoning existing, bad regulations, he argued, few of them will be reviewed.

“The states that can change this process by reevaluating old things … are the ones that can change the way regulations tend to actually accumulate,” McLaughlin said. “Leaving regulations to themselves, not worrying about the bureaucracy, will mean slower economic growth, more poverty, lost jobs.”