Uncle Sam is choking to death!

Washington Post:

Philip K. Howard, a lawyer, is the chair of the legal reform nonprofit Common Good and the author, most recently, of "Life Without Lawyers."

America is choking on laws of our own making.

Once a law is in place in the United States, it's almost impossible to dislodge. Our political class assumes that, after a law is forged in the crucible of democracy, it should be honored as if it's one of the Ten Commandments - except it's more like one of 10 million.

We even have a hard time modifying laws that were explicitly designed to be temporary. Just look at the current battle over the Bush-era tax cuts.

Having that debate at all is unusual. Once enacted, most laws are ignored for generations, allowed to take on a life of their own without meaningful review. Decade after decade, they pile up like sediment in a harbor, bogging the country down - in dense regulation, unaffordable health care, and higher taxes and public debt.

A healthy democracy must make fresh choices. This requires not mindless deregulation but continual adjustment of laws. Congress could take on this responsibility if it followed a simple proposal: Every law should automatically expire after 10 or 15 years. Such a universal sunset provision would force Congress and the president to justify the status quo and give political reformers an opening to reexamine trade-offs and public priorities.

Unless forced to make tough choices, Congress will keep kicking the can down the road...

One nation, under too many laws