Cass Sunstein Outdoes Orwell

Guest post by Jeff Perren

Cass Sunstein, head of the Office of Regulatory Affairs, unveiled the U.S. Federal government's plans for (cough) “regulatory overhaul.”

    Sunstein said that the reform proposals, which are now available for public review as they head to become final rules in roughly 80 days, “underline and italicize the words freedom of choice.” [emphasis added]

Coming from this Administration—and from Sunstein in particular—that is a statement I regard as roughly equivalent to the slogans “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.”

By the way, as of two days ago, none of those sections allegedly designed for public feedback were operational and there were no comments.

P.S. If the partial list provided at AEI is any indication, none of these changes touch anything serious. (Yes, I'm not surprised, either.) For example,

- Creating a system of hazard labels that conforms to “international harmonization.”
- Making sure federal regulatory code doesn’t refer to nations that no longer exist.

Color me underwhelmed.