The Deregulation Myth

Matt Welch:

Not a day goes by when George W. Bush’s deregulation is not blamed for the financial crisis, and yet he hired 90,000 net new regulators, passed the largest Wall Street reform since the Depression, and increased fiscally significant regulations by more than any president since Richard Nixon. We are told by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and his friends in The Nation that the country is being ruled by a ruthless “austerity class,” yet federal spending has continued to increase even after the summer’s debt-ceiling agreement.

The myth that the current crisis is due to a lack of regulation is dangerous. Every regulation and every tax increase mean more power to the political elite and less power to the people—it’s the road to totalitarianism.

Read it at Reason.