I’d say the answer to “how did we get from vehicle safety to national debt” is “through the cudgel of overgeneralization that is typically swung by people who think the democratically defined rule of law is somehow equivalent to oppression.” Anything that forces me to live by a law I don’t like, you see, is a “game” or a “fraud” – whether that’s the “game” of setting and using a consistent accounting calendar that, gawd forbid, doesn’t align to January and so “confuses me” enough (aka: gives me enough excuse) to juuuust squeeze in a conspiracy theory regarding one of the most painfully, over-data-shared agencies of the federal government, or it’s the “fraud” of regulations which have cut per-capita vehicle deaths by 80% since the creation of the associated regulatory agency (the NHTSA, created by a law signed 10 months after the publishing of the book).
See, here’s the really dumb thing about “regulation increases revenue:” and to whom, exactly, do you think that money goes? Can anyone point to a government official that is paid by commission? Anyone that gets a percent cut of revenue, so they’re upselling your traffic ticket - “would you like deferred adjudication with that? Thanks for your order!” to bump up revenue?
Salaries are not tied to revenue in government – which is unsurprising, because the government is basically the largest nonprofit corporation in the country. Out of every penny of revenue added, exactly 0% of that direct funding goes to somebody’s dividend, or a percent increase in salaries or benefits. It goes back into the company – which is in the business, in this case, of providing us public services. Every penny of that “revenue machine” of regulation? WE GET IT ALL BACK.
Well, I guess you could say if you violate the regulation, you don’t directly get it all back – public services paid by revenue are something you get, but so does the guy beside you and the guy beside him. Fair enough. But you know what? You should be paying for that. I should be getting a cut of the revenue you just “generated” for the government. Because, and this is the nifty thing about regulation: when you violate them, typically you are costing me money. Those regulations ensure even baseline playing fields across particular industries, and if you comply with them, guess what, gub’mint doesn’t “generate any income” – you just comply with the same requirements as everyone else in your industry, and nobody suffers competitive disadvantage. But try to game the system, sneak a little something by to water down or cut a corner on that requirement – all of the sudden, I’m getting an inferior product and you, due to the illicit competitive advantage you gained, retain your price due to the rest market being bound to it and pocket the profits.
Regulations only “generate revenue” to any significant degree if you violate them. There is value to ensuring that there is a baseline of requirement for product safety, in evening the playing field by making sure one can’t “compete” on how many kids choke on your product or houses are set on fire by your product’s flammability. Violate those baselines, and damn right, you should be “generating revenue” for the nonprofit that I own, along with a third of a billion other citizens of my country. You’re breaking our rules. Breaking our rules means we have to pay the socioeconomic costs of your laziness and greed – every family that loses their house, every person overcrowding an ER that can’t actually cover their way but isn’t thinking about that when they’re entering the ER because they’re busy dying from asbestos/heavy metal/take your pick poisoning, every regulatory decision you decide you’re too much of a Special Flower™ for costs me and my country money. Don’t complain when we send you the bill.
