The high cost of over-regulation — the problem is way bigger than UNM!

You know the regulatory state has gotten too big and lacking in common sense when the State’s flagship university complains about its regulatory burdens. I do applaud the Albuquerque Journal for covering the issue and UNM for being willing to speak out, but UNM has teams of attorneys and they are ultimately not trying to make a profit, nor are they spending their own money. Imagine what small businesses must deal with when it comes to regulations.

Our friends at the American Action Forum track regulations pretty closely and have put together the following map illustrating how the federal government’s regulatory burden increased during just the Obama Administration (from 2009-2015). Federal regulations increased by $998 for each and every New Mexican over that time frame.

And then there are state regulations. Unfortunately (as the chart below from the Mercatus Center shows), but not surprisingly, New Mexico performs rather poorly in terms of the regulations it imposes on businesses and individuals. Thankfully, a few years ago the Rio Grande Foundation put together some specific ideas for regulatory reform at the state level: