Regulations Spending

The United States' federal government spending on defining and implementing regulations has grown significantly since 1960 (see report). These are only the government's costs of developing, administering, and enforcing federal rules and regulations affecting the private sector. The private-sector costs of implementing and managing such costs, including responding to  regulatory directives, are not included.

Social regulatory agencies deal with environmental protection, homeland security, transportation, consumer safety, energy, and the workplace. Economic regulatory agencies are concerned with finance, banking, industry-specific, and general-business rules.

The following are such annual expenditures for 1960-2018, in billions of constant 2009 dollars.

Social regulation spending:

2016 2365 2686 3033 3203 3230 3359 3548 3973 4422 4817 5965 7308 9599 9070
9971 11188 11828 12177 12682 13646 13263 12042 12108 12340 12603 12867 13774
14767 15691 16658 18235 19966 20067 20361 20847 20673 21686 23627 24435 25656
26826 31815 40865 35971 36318 37582 38045 40347 43542 45116 45580 45843 44219
44424 45136 46244 47155 49033


Economic regulation spending:

1019 1174 1196 1368 1460 1690 1607 1739 1818 1862 2137 2343 2214 1845 2115 2433
2609 2701 2561 2651 2810 2514 2691 2632 2755 2982 3437 2974 3407 3535 3834 3687
4046 4620 4306 5006 4618 4980 4875 5113 5381 5513 5928 5864 6354 6446 6700 6949
7305 7861 8121 8713 9080 9708 9745 10284 10974 11059 11170


Combined social and economic spending:

3035 3539 3882 4401 4663 4919 4966 5287 5791 6284 6954 8308 9522 11445 11184 12404
13796 14529 14739 15247 16456 15778 14735 14740 15095 15585 16304 16748 18174
19225 20492 21922 24011 24688 24667 25854 25291 26666 28502 29548 31036 32338
37742 46729 42325 42764 44282 44994 47652 51403 53237 54293 54922 53927 54170
55420 57218 58214 60203

 

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