Zero-based regulation made Idaho the least regulated state in the US

My gob is smacked by the overt mercenary cynicism here. They don‘t even pretend to care about possible negative consequences - in fact they don’t even really care about the positive consequences! This is a document written by and for ideological operatives. The “spring-cleaning” below seems to have very negative possible consequences, but the authors take a “credentials schmedentials” approach to considering such things:

  Representative Examples of Spring-Cleaning Edits

  Type of Spring-Cleaning Edit 
  Specific Regulation Example

  Reduce barriers to entry into a licensed profession 
  Added an apprenticeship pathway for water-operator licenses in lieu of formal college education

  Ease burden of licensure renewal 
  Reduced continuing education requirements for professions like nursing and plumbing

  Expand professional scope of practice 
  Enabled occupational therapists to perform some duties previously limited to physical therapists; expanded pharmacist prescriptive authority

  Empower business ownership 
  Removed the requirement that a plumber have two years of journeyman experience to own his own business

  Limit supervision requirements on a licensed profession 
  Removed the limit on the number of physician assistants that may be overseen by a physician; expanded the duties that may be delegated to a dental assistant

  Expand consumer choice 
  Eliminated the prohibition on selling alcoholic beverages at college sporting events; removed barriers to telehealth, enabling broader access to health-care services and access to specialists

  Liberate academic institutions 
  Removed the requirement for the board of nursing to review and approve curriculum of nursing programs and deferred to existing accreditation pathways

The “occupational therapists and physical therapists are basically the same thing” is going to ruin a lot of people’s knees. And I wonder how long it’ll take for Iowa to quietly reimpose “plumbers must have requisite experience to run their own business”

Not sure how applicable Idaho's situation is to other states, because Idaho is one of the poorest states in the country.[a]

My quick take: Laws and regulations can be bad or even terrible... but sometimes they are good and necessary. For example, federal and state governments legally requiring everyone in the US to drive on the right side of the road has been beneficial for everyone.

What is almost always bad for everyone is the network of bureaucracies that grow and fester unchecked around the enactment and enforcement of laws and regulations.

We must distinguish between the two: laws/regulations vs. bureaucracies.

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[a] #46 in GDP per capita, according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

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