Omri Ben-Shahar: "America is now The Land of Pop-Up Laws"

The Repeal Of Obama's Legacy: A Different Perspective

America is now The Land of Pop-Up Laws.

A striking pattern emerged recently: Federal laws have lost their durability. Through executive orders, regulatory action (or inaction), budgetary legislation, and obscure Congressional procedures, older laws are either repealed or gutted in area after area. Democrats that worked hard to pass older liberal-leaning laws are kvetching, Republicans that opposed those laws are rejoicing, but both sides are strikingly myopic, blind to the underlying pattern. What they are failing to see is that not only the old laws have become temporary; also their repeals. If winning a legislative battle—over a reform or its repeal—used to be a home run, it is now only a single.

The traditional view is that federal laws are difficult to pass and durable if passed. They have to clear both chambers of Congress, a potential presidential veto, and take years to be implemented by the agencies in charge. Once they kick into action, however, they live long because it is thought that they would be equally difficult to reform. But the political volatility of our times is changing this.

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