Nick Gillespie: How "The Rule of Nobody" Leads to Tyranny by Bureaucrat and Dumb Regulations
If the government that governs least governs best, writes Nick Gillespie, then the government that governs via a demented form of "scientific management" and "legal assembly line" governs worst.
And that's exactly what we're getting these days. When the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey wanted to raise the roadway on the Bayonne Bridge to accommodate newer, taller ships, the renovation project seemed pretty straightforward. But it's turning out to be anything but simple, thanks to dozens of rules, regulations, and agencies that are standing in the way of what everyone agrees in a vital project. The Bayonne Bridge project exemplifies what Philip K. Howard calls "the rule of nobody" in his bracing and vital new book about "dead laws and broken grovernment."
