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As Republicans go on the attack about excessive regulation under the Obama Administration, it’s worth noting two things. First, the regulatory state started growing under President George Bush, as I showed in my posts The Age of Regulation Started Ten Years Ago and Homeland Security and the Regulatory Burden.  Homeland Security accounts for roughly 90% of the increase in federal regulatory employment over the past ten years.

The second point is that the growth of regulation over the past ten years has been quite uneven, even outside of Homeland Security. Take a look at the chart below.

You can see that workplace and the environment has lagged in terms of regulatory employment. Just something to keep in mind.  Some of the big gainers were the FDA, the SEC, and the NRC.

This piece is cross-posted at Mandel on Innovation and Growth