Inflating the regulatory state (Have the number of regulators doubled in the last 30 years?)

[salvorhardin]

The answer is yes -- if you count your friendly airport TSA officer or smiling border patrol agent as a "regulator."

Have regulators, as Bloomberg seems to be saying, doubled in the last thirty years, adding 145,000 jobs? That depends on whether you think these guys are regulators:

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More than 83 percent of the new regulatory-agency jobs since 1980 came in the Department of Homeland Security, and almost all of those DHS jobs were created after 2000. That spike came when the Bush administration and Congress federalized private airport security in the wake of the catastrophic failure on 9/11. The Transportation Security Administration accounts for 60,000 of those 145,000 new regulatory jobs. Meantime, ramped-up border security—most of it since 9/11, accounts for another 61,000.

Quasi-defense jobs are hardly what most people think about when they talk about regulators. And Bloomberg’s story is about who oversees the rulemakers, not the guy checking your driver’s license at LAX.

Full post: http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/bloomberg_inflates_the_regulat.php

[aquart]

1. Unfortunate. Should have quadrupled.

We have air, water, machinery, imports, food and everything else to inspect for safety.

Remember this:

PROPERLY-FUNDED REGULATION CREATES JOBS!

[salvorhardin]

2. I agree

Except where it pertains to TSA, unless you're talking about a total refactoring of how that agency operates. Right now it's highly intrusive show security.

[aquart]

6. Everything we did at airports post 9/11 was idiotic show crap.

And I simply assume all the contractors are Republican.

As for Homeland Security, that should be dismantled just for using the word "homeland."

[salvorhardin]

7. ROFL!

At least somebody in the Bush administration was savvy enough to steer them away from what surely must have been their first choice -- fatherland.

[lob1]

3. Too many TSA agents, but almost no food inspectors.

Remember a couple of summers ago when China shipped us a bunch of poison dog food? Hundreds, maybe thousands of animals died. It came out then that we have only ONE guy, Bob, inspecting all the food imported from China.

[BlueToTheBone]

4. Wouldn't that be under security or police or military?

But regulators? They're regulating our entrance on the plane? They're regulating who comes into the country? What a bunch of crap.

But I just realized that that was the first plank of shock doctrine. Privatize airport security. This must be part of the trifecta * crowed about.

[salvorhardin]

5. That's the whole point of Ryan's CJR post

Bloomberg is redefining the common meaning of 'regulator.'