costs

While tight budgets are constraining regulatory spending at many federal agencies, those that garner funding from industry fees are using these revenue streams to fund substantial increases in regulatory programs and staffing, according to an annual report that examines the U.S. budget. The report was released by the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis and the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.

“Give me a one-armed economist,” President Harry S. Truman once demanded as he vented his frustration over economic advisors who offer straightforward recommendations, then hedge their bets by tacking on a slew of caveats, often beginning with the phrase “but, on the other hand…” Now, Murray Weidenbaum, the chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s first Council of Economic Advisers, has published a compilation of essays that offers the clear, no-nonsense economic policy analysis that Truman craved. Titled One-Armed Economist: On the Intersection of Business and Government, the book provides a distillation of four decades of Weidenbaum’s writings on key public policy issues.