An Auburn University study says every single regulator destroys fully 138 private sector jobs every year you keep him on the job.
With nearly 300,000 federal regulators, the shock is that we still have any jobs at all.
The Two Scariest Words in the English Language
A lot of the excitement around the Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE — focuses on the dollars saved. But more important is all the things the federal government destroys with those dollars.
Specifically, the millions of jobs destroyed by the two scariest words in the English language: federal regulators.
A few weeks ago I mentioned how DOGE under Elon and Vivek is taking aim at the regulatory mothership that strangles the American economy and fuels the totalitarian administrative state — you may remember it from Covid.
A mother ship that is oddly enough unconstitutional according to a pair of recent Supreme Court decisions — Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo and West Virginia v EPA.
I asserted this could unleash the economy like nothing we’ve seen in the past century.
And the reason is because it’s hard to overstate just how destructive regulations are.
Every Regulator Destroys 138 Jobs
One 2017 study by the Phoenix Center and Auburn University found that every single full-time regulator destroys 158 jobs.
GDP-adjusted to today, that translates to $16.5 million of economic output. For a hundred-thousand dollar bureaucrat.
This lost output is made of jobs and businesses that were never started. Or were stunted by strangling regulations — which are generally bought by big corporations specifically to strangle small competitors.
Along with mom and pops chased into bankruptcy as collateral damage to new regulations — say, a diner forced to spend $30,000 on a low-energy exhaust fan.
Hellbound and Down 