While Hillary Clinton was busy gathering her pieces of china, bought by loyal followers from her registry at Borsheim’s Jewelers in Nebraska, President Bill Clinton has been busy drafting pages and pages of regulation.  While Mrs. Clinton could only receive gifts before Jan. 3, (the first day of her Senate service), but President Clinton has until Jan. 20 to accomplish his goal of using executive orders to bypass Congress and enact a raft of new rules. 

It is estimated that there will be more than 29,000 pages of these “midnight regulations” enacted before Clinton leaves office.  The rush to finalize a flurry of pending regulations is a tradition whenever an administration transitions out.  This administration has far surpassed the activities of its predecessors.  Jimmy Carter currently holds the record for pages of regulation with 24,531 pages of these rules, nearly 4,500 pages less than Clinton’s 29,000 pages.

The Clinton Administration’s rush to issue rules not only reflects a serious disregard for a fair, open and constitutional method of passing regulations, but it also poses a serious financial threat to taxpayers and small businesses.  The National Federation of Independent Business calls the proposed Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules “vague and confusing” and claims that one rule, pertaining to “repetitive-motion” injuries, will be the costliest rule ever imposed on small business.

Although the pending Bush Administration is expected to oppose many of the rules, once these rules are written into law by Clinton, any reversal of them would entail starting the process all over again, at a huge cost to the new administration, in terms of both time and money.

For leaving the President-elect with a larger bureaucracy to untangle and for costing taxpayers, small business and the new administration more time and money, we name President William Jefferson Clinton Porker of the Month, for the last time.  We hope.