For years, federal, state and local governments have been passing crazy regulations that drive up the cost of doing business, without allocating any public funds to pay for the costly measures required. These rules and regulations are called “unfunded government mandates,” and you hear businessmen complain about them all the time. If the government would just get out of their hair plugs and let them work, everyone would be better off. For example:

Important-sounding statisticians estimate that, over the last 30 years, developers could have saved an estimated $6 billion in construction costs if they weren’t required to build expensive yet little-used fire escapes on apartment buildings.

Out-of-control government bureaucracy requires almost every community to build huge, ugly things called “sewage treatment plants” which rarely attract visitors, yet they must remain open even on Sundays and public holidays.

The estimated loss of income to tavern owners by the odious government regulation prohibiting the sale of liquor to minors is said to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

As if city councils don’t have better things to do, many of them now require landlords to install smoke detectors in rental apartments, driving up the cost for owners. The money wasted on this needless expense would no doubt have been used to lower rents. Remember, the best smoke detector on the market is the human lung.