RED TAPE HOLDS THE NATION TOGETHER: Wayne Crews on what needs to happen to make the President’s Federal Regulatory Budget actually work. Perhaps surprisingly, there is bipartisan support for reform, but it never seems to happen.

If it doesn’t, this number will continue to chew up our lives: in 2015,

9.778 billion hours was required to complete the federal paperwork requirements from 22 executive departments and six independent agencies that have been historically subject to survey.

That’s 4.7 million people working nominally in the private sector but actually just filling out Federal forms. As Wayne points out, that’s also almost 14,000 human lifetimes, each year.