This reminds me a lot of the tax code. One special case is painless. A whole pile means that millions of worker hours are wasted trying to fill out the forms correctly, and millions of dollars paid to CPAs to do what any citizen ought to be able to do in minutes.
Both with taxes and regulations, it's death by a thousand cuts. If you try to fix it, you'll hear "but soy farmers need tax breaks" and "but workers need to have good office chairs". Individually, each claim sounds reasonable. Collectively, it's a mess.
I sometimes fantasize of ways to limit this. Eg, have all laws sunset, so we have to prioritize renewing the most important. Or set absolute size limits on areas of regulation - like a one-page tax code (with specified font and margins). But likely none of it would work, humans being so good at exploiting systems for personal gain.
Both with taxes and regulations, it's death by a thousand cuts. If you try to fix it, you'll hear "but soy farmers need tax breaks" and "but workers need to have good office chairs". Individually, each claim sounds reasonable. Collectively, it's a mess.
I sometimes fantasize of ways to limit this. Eg, have all laws sunset, so we have to prioritize renewing the most important. Or set absolute size limits on areas of regulation - like a one-page tax code (with specified font and margins). But likely none of it would work, humans being so good at exploiting systems for personal gain.