Regulatory Reform: Timid and too easily tamed?

 

David Seymour's regulatory reform bill: less chainsaw and more milquetoast

While one crowd over there are making a fuss about one of David Seymour's bills—his Treaty Principles Bill—another one is heading to be cemented in as law. And it's ... not bad. 

It's his bill for "regulatory reform." And, you know, it's not Javier Milei's "chainsaw" model of bureaucratic reform, unfortunately, that's seen around 50,000 government jobs slashed and more than half Argentina's ministries shuttered — and inflation plummeting from a high of up to one-percent per day to arond 2.7% per month. That would be something to see.

But it might be longer lasting.

“The Bill will codify principles of good regulatory practice for existing and future regulations,” says Mr Seymour.
    “It seeks to bring the same level of discipline to regulation that the Public Finance Act brings to public spending, with the Ministry for Regulation playing a role akin to that of Treasury."

Wishful thinking, I suspect. 

There's already one problem here, of course: that before any regulations are even reformed we already have a whole new bureaucracy: a Ministry of Regulation. And there's a strong suspicion that this new ministry might be less a Treasury-like entity chainsawing offending clauses from new legislation, and more an ombudsman-like sounding board for regulatory nerds.

We shall see.

Seymour is optimistic however. (Well, he has to be.) He says his proposed Regulatory Standards Bill will include:

• a benchmark for good regulation [sic] through a set of principles of responsible regulation 
• mechanisms to transparently assess the consistency of new legislative proposals and existing regulation with the principles
• a mechanism for independent consideration of the consistency of existing regulation, primarily in response to stakeholder [sic] concerns.

The last two will see whether or not the ministry will be any more than another drain on taxpayers' wallets. ("Issuing non-binding recommendations" suggests not.) It's the first one I want to look at here. What "principles of responsible regulation" could give a reliable standard for "good" regulation? (Given that, by my standards, I would say "none.")

The principles [says the Bill's preamble] cover 7 key areas, including the rule of law, protection of individual liberties, protection of property rights, the imposition of taxes and charges, the role of the courts, review of administrative decisions, and good law-making processes.

Rule of law, individual liberties, property rights ... sounds good. As enumerated principles. Except "Any incompatibility with the principles is justified to the extent that it is reasonable and can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." Justification for which is to be cleared by either a court so constituted, or a minister signing a certificate. (A bit like our toothless Bill of Rights.)

So expect to hear that exception wheeled out many times, as future ministers explain why keeping society "free and democratic" requires violating your individual liberties.

If they bother at all.

The problem of course is that "You can't address a fundamental problem by making marginal changes." Which is all this really is: raising the political cost of making bad laws, as Seymour admits, without actually stopping the bad laws being made. As Gus Van Horn comments on a somewhat similar approach being made in the US:

Absent a fundamental shift in which our politicians are guided by restoring government to its proper purpose, the protection of individual rights, there will only be this nibbling at the margins. Meanwhile the leviathan will grow out of control until the unsustainable mess mercilessly self-corrects.