If you had to guess how much new legislation is introduced in Congress each session (two years), what would you say? I’ll save you the trouble; the answer is about ten thousand new laws…that’s 10,000. While that is a big number, keep in mind that only a small fraction of that number of new bills goes anywhere. Most never see the light of day which is probably a good thing.

Think about the time, effort and money that goes into creating all those potential laws, think of the number of lawyers, staffers and those well experienced Senate and House interns just out of college who have to draft that stuff? So how many federal laws are there anyway? Good question; it appears no one actually knows.

The best I could find was 75,000 pages of laws for this or that federal agency, 75,000 for another and on and on which is not even a comment on the regulations, rules, etc. that go with each law that is approved. It’s mindboggling and that ain’t no exaggeration. But here is the real point, do we need more laws?

The problem with Congress is that it is in the business of creating more work for the federal government and turning a deaf ear to what happens once all this legislation is enacted. In effect, a law is passed, it is turned over to a government agency to write regulations and to enforce and then Congress forgets about it and moves on to more new legislation.

It seems to me that we would all be better served if Congress spent a little more time assessing the work of the federal government, the effectiveness and the real cost of the laws it has passed and also focusing on the real problems we face. . . Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all the expiring taxes at year-end, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, other major entitlement programs, etc. Here is just a small sample from one day’s update sent by the Congressional Budget Office of the new legislation it receives to review for budget impact.

New from CBO

• H.R. 538, Government Customer Service Improvement Act
• H.R. 1818, Mt. Andrea Lawrence Designation Act of 2011
• H.R. 2668, an act to designate the station of the United States Border Patrol located at 2136 South Naco Highway in Bisbee, Arizona, as the “Brian A. Terry Border Patrol Station”
• H.R. 3283, Swap Jurisdiction Certainty Act
• H.R. 4235, SWAP Data Repository and Clearinghouse Indemnification Correction Act of 2012
• H.R. 3902, the District of Columbia Special Election Reform Act
• S. 925, Mt. Andrea Lawrence Designation Act of 2011

What I find intriguing is when you hear people like Paul Krugman, who made the circuit on TV this past weekend, saying how now is no time for austerity, no time to trim budgets, we need to wait until the economic recovery takes hold; spend now, manage costs long-term.

When it comes to Congress no time is a good time to be prudent spenders. We don’t have to cut, slash and burn existing programs, we simply need to stop adding new ones we cannot afford. Stop for a minute and think before introducing a new law that will cost any money either directly or through required compliance and administration.

It’s not all that complicated, but you see it is not in their DNA. If Congress does not enact something new, it has nothing to sell to voters and God forbid doing the right thing for the long-term interests of the Republic comes before the desire to be re-elected. However, in the final analysis whose fault is this really? Seems to me it is the fault of voters who want more and more without regard to the consequences for the Country or their fellow taxpayers.

Have we taken that “government for the people” a bit too far and forgotten about “of the people and by the people?”