Editor’s Note: President Carter deserves much of the credit for institutionalizing White House review of federal regulations. The administrative state would be a vastly less contained enterprise were it not for his leadership in creating OMB’s institutional capacity to review regulations. The Godfather of Regulatory Budgeting explains “‘President Carter had set up this office [OIRA] of almost 90 people and we had been reviewing regulations. When Reagan issued the executive order, we had an infrastructure, which is very important . . . .'”
From: The Hill
By Stuart Eizenstat
It’s been almost exactly 40 years since former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and a professor on leave from Harvard — now-Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer — teamed with President Jimmy Carter to identify sectors of the U.S. economy that could benefit from lighter government regulation without compromising health or safety.
Their success, with the leadership of President Carter and bipartisan congressional support, demonstrates how a major industry can thrive in a free-market system in which government oversight remains important to assure that market forces serve the public as well as corporate profits.