Legislation Nation

 The sheer abundance of legislation that is pushed through Congress and State Houses every year in America is strangling society. Each year, our representatives introduce thousands of bills that are choking Americans’ personal solitude, products, infrastructure, and enterprises.  The regulations are forcing American businesses to comply with rules that make it difficult to compete in a competitive world market and American citizens are taking the brunt of the damage---especially financially and humanistically.  According to The Gov Track Blog, 4,288 bills had been introduced as of August 4th, 2011.  With such a huge number of bills being introduced, one does not have to wonder why government is achieving so little.  Party lines are primarily to blame---dictating what bills are and are not passed, often achieving little other than legislative gridlock.  

    One area of the American legal system that has particularly suffered is product liability.  Companies often manufacture products that can pose a danger to a purchaser---lawnmowers, knives, cars, etc.  Lawmakers, often lawyers before becoming so, are often turning a blind eye to the ever-increasing plight of product manufacturers who are becoming subject to the whims of product liability lawyers.  These lawyers viciously and systematically attack product manufacturers when a customer happens to injure themselves--often at no fault of the manufacturer in any way.  Famous incidents include the case of a woman who was awarded a seven figure settlement for spilling a cup of coffee down her shirt---and yet somehow, the fast food chain in question was found to be at fault.  Our legislators are becoming increasingly tolerant of, and indeed sympathetic towards, product liability lawsuits---churning out pages and pages of legislation that enable the baseless claims of these individuals.  Lawsuits such as these typify the increasing mindset of the American public---a mindset brought about by legislation passed by our representatives that is slowly crippling American sovereignty.  

    The increase in product liability lawsuits, for example, has repercussions extending far beyond the excessive punitive damages handed down by incompetent jury panels.  Liability insurance, already a huge expenditure for many working professionals, has also increased.  Doctors across the country have attributed malpractice insurance and costs associated with claim payment, as a main reason for medicine being so costly to practice.  Those who are negatively impacted by malpractice lawsuits and the legislation that accompanies them: doctors, insurance companies, and patients, estimate that the cost of medical malpractice litigation has increased annually by a rate of 12% since 1975.  The US Department of Justice records the median settlement in a medical malpractice case between $109,000 and $195,000.  What the legislature has failed to realize is the unintended consequences (cost) that this has upon the people who they represent. Studies have shown that the costs associated with malpractice suits, namely defensive medicine and preventative testing, is responsible for 5-10% of US health care costs.  As our representatives, members of Congress should be passing legislation that curtails such frivolous lawsuits instead of introducing such a vast number of, generally, useless bills.  To do so would decrease physician costs, which would decrease healthcare costs, which would provide for a better way of life for the American people as a whole.  Tort reform, anyone?

    Putting aside the costs associated with litigation, one can only laugh at some of the laws passed by our legislature in 2011.  One such law dictates that places such as hotels, restaurants, and airplanes are required to recognize horses as a viable alternative to dogs as service animals.  When facing one of the most daunting economic crises in history, the legislature and our President should have better things to do than determine the nature of our citizens service animals.  Especially considering the vast number of such ridiculous bills that were introduced to Congress and state legislatures within the last year alone.  

    It makes you wonder if we had fewer lawyers involved in the legislative process, whether we might have more reasonable and less intrusive laws being introduced.  Do you sense a conflict of interest here? Do we really need every facet of our lives controlled by laws that constantly attack our rights and civil liberties?  The abuse of this power is supported by the fact that these legislative bodies often exempt themselves from the laws that we as citizens are expected to observe, or risk arrest and prosecution.

    For America to emerge from the current state of fiscal and legislative gridlock that it currently flounders in, we must encourage our legislators to reign in and control the over abundance of legislation that they constantly introduce.  Such a huge volume precludes any possibility of quality and prevents them from accomplishing anything remotely useful.  We need our legislators, most of whom are lawyers, to pass legislation that controls the increasingly costly litigation that is currently decimating American product creativity, profitability, individual liberty and solitude.  When this is achieved, America can return to the world stage as a competitive, free market economy with citizens free from the burdens of arduous laws---one not burdened by the problem of litigious attorneys who control our legislature and gridlock it with unnecessary laws that crush our ability as a people to lead productive and unobtrusive lives.  

“Let freedom ring.”