I’ve written before about government’s regulations.  Just as pernicious, though, are government’s laws—and this is even more our own fault, because unlike regulations, which are created by nameless Executive Branch bureaucrats through delegation from Congress, laws are passed by that Congress—the very folks we elect to represent us, and then re-elect, even when they overstep or ignore our instructions to them.

Last year, the National Conference of State Legislatures reports, the states passed 40,000 laws that take effect this year, or took effect after passage last year.  The Daily Caller reports that at the Federal level, it would have taken 12 days(!), at 200 pages per day, to read all the Federal laws and regulations extant in 1925 (before the New Deal, that is).  Today, it’ll take three years.  Obamacare and Dodd–Frank, for all their excessiveness, actually added only 25 days.

Some examples at the State level include the following gems.  You’re already aware of Obamacare and Dodd-Frank; I won’t go into further Federal pearls.

California last year banned the use of UV indoor tanning beds for all minors.  Apparently, the State has decided parents are too negligent and can’t be trusted to do their own jobs.  Nor is their judgment to be trusted.

California has banned “the production, distribution or sale of beer to which caffeine has been directly added as a separate ingredient.”  Apparently the State’s distrust extends to all of its adult citizens.  The Patrons in government Know Better, and good idea or bad, mere adults won’t have that choice to make.

Kentucky has decided that selected prison inmates who have not been granted parole must serve “the final six months of their sentence in the community under supervision.”  In other words, these inmates get parole, anyway, even though they didn’t get parole.  Hmm….

In Oregon, the state’s universities and community colleges must “waive tuition and fees for current and former foster children under age 25,” and this new law also gives foster children (25 is a child?  Still, that’s consistent with the adult “child” that Obamacare allows onto a parents’ health insurance policy—at the parents’ cost) first claim on the state’s Opportunity Grants when funding can’t support 100% of otherwise eligible students.  We get yet more special treatment for favored groups—this time under the guise of glorified “affirmative action.”  The law is silent on orphans or children raised in orphanages; apparently they aren’t as deserving.

More examples can be found at the NCSL link above.

Tacitus warned us long ago:

Corruptisima republica plurimae leges.