Is Politics Insoluble?

44 / Henry Hazlitt
merce and are subject to severe limitations by the Constitu-
tion, so an innocent reader of that document might not see the
need for many such laws. Though the federal books were pre-
sumably blank when it started, the First Congress, which
began on March 4, 1789, did not see the need for many federal
laws. It enacted only 94.
But then, as more and more laws were piled up, succeed-
ing Congresses were convinced that more and more additional
laws were necessary. The 85th Congress, which opened in
January 1957, enacted 1,009 laws; the 94th, which began in
January 1975, enacted 588. The ten Congresses during that
period enacted an average of 735 laws each, which means an
average of 367 new federal laws a year—or one new law every
day. The reader should be reminded that individually many of
these laws ran to well over 100 pages each.
Congressional Promises
The mania for piling up additional laws—new compul-
sions or prohibitions or changes of the rules—seems to be
endemic in our democratic process. Every two years, when a
new Congress is chosen, the rival candidates are eager to
convince the voters that they can shower more blessings
upon them than their respective competitors. "There ought
to be a law," they tell the voters, to forbid this or that, or to
give you this or that. "If I am elected, I will introduce a
bill"—to guarantee you this or that. So almost every con-
gressman introduces at least one bill with his name attached
to it.
In the 94th Congress, which began in January 1975, 3,899
bills were introduced in the Senate and 15,863 in the House
an average of 37 bills per member. These are by no means
unusual figures. In the 93rd Congress, 4,260 bills were intro-
—