Ira Stoll Advises the Incoming GOP Congress Against Passing New Laws

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Credit: Gage Skidmore / photo on flickr

The smartest minds on the center-right are circulating lists of legislation for the new Republican Congress to pass. George Will, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, and Charles Krauthammer have all published their recommendations. Some focus on repealing or eliminating regulations, but there are also new policies they want to put into place. Ira Stoll has his own suggestion: Don't. Setting "zero" as at least the symbolic goal for new laws in the new Congress would have the virtue of being humble, Stoll notes. It would be a signal that Congress understands the law of unintended consequences: that actions intended to improve matters may wind up making them worse in ways initially unimagined.