Red tape burden surges to 10.34 billion hours, 15,000 lifetimes

Federal paperwork requirements required by President Joe Biden’s expanding regulations cost taxpayers and companies over 10 billion hours a year, the equivalent of 15,000 “human lifetimes of work, sleep, play, and everything in between,” according to new agency reports.

The financial cost is just as bad: $163.2 billion, the Office of Management and Budget said.

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In his new report on red tape, Clyde Wayne Crews, the regulatory expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the bulk of regulations burdening the nation is in tax and healthcare.

“Predictably, the bulk — 6.6 billion hours — come courtesy of the Treasury Department and income tax compliance. Healthcare is paperwork-laden, as the 1.6 billion hours attributed to the Department of Health and Human Services attest,” he said.

Crews tabulated the red tape from several agency reports to come up with his shocking numbers.

Since Biden entered the Oval Office, federal agencies have been increasing regulations and dismantling former President Donald Trump’s deregulation agenda. Biden has increased many regulations through executive orders, following the pattern set by former President Barack Obama, who boosted rules and regulations when he lost control of Congress.

Crews cautioned in his report that paperwork hours are separate from actual work hours required by regulations.

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And the Biden administration, in some cases, doesn’t even estimate the burden of regulations, choosing instead to “sweep independent agency regulation costs under the rug,” Crews said.

He added, “We need any and all footholds we can get with respect to independent agency disclosures and review, especially as these assume greater prominence, given a regulatory state intensifying under the malign policies of ‘Bidenomics.’ For example, one SEC commissioner claimed new reporting requirements on climate and ESG will inflate reporting costs, lately around $2 billion, to over $8 billion.”