My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

All of the tools are there, and have been there, to rein in Wisconsin’s suffocating regulatory burden. What has been missing is the will and energy to use those tools. Normal Wisconsinites do not have a lobbyist who can attend the meetings to weigh in on a regulation. They rely on their elected representatives to be their voice in lightening the weight of government regulation. Far too often, politicians of both parties grant wide latitude to unelected regulators to micromanage Wisconsinites in almost everything they do. The politicians become the voice of the bureaucracy instead of the voice of the people.

 

Wisconsin’s Republicans must take on the regulatory monster because the Democrats never will. There are a few simple questions that politicians should ask themselves before approving any regulation. First, if the regulation supported by law or is it a new law? If a regulation is not in support of a law passed by the people’s legislature, then it should be denied.

 

Second, is the regulation absolutely necessary? There are a lot of good ideas out there or things that people should do, but that does not mean that the government should regulate it. Freedom is precisely the right to do things of which other people disapprove without government sanction. If a regulation is not absolutely necessary, it should be denied.