(The Center Square) – The latest plan to jumpstart Wisconsin’s economy has nothing to do with taxes or state spending.
A statewide coalition of free market groups is taking aim at Wisconsin’s volumes of regulation.
“Wisconsin has 165,000 restrictions on the books. If you think about it this way these are rules that have words that you must do something or you cannot do something but it’s really the only good way to measure it,” Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty policy director Kyle Koenen said on News Talk 1130 WISN. “When you look at Wisconsin we’re not in a great place nationally ranked 13th overall, and 13th is not great. In the Midwest, we have a second highest level of regulation, second only to Illinois.”
Koenen said rolling back just 20% of Wisconsin’s regulations could save nearly $2.5 billion a year or close to $23 billion over a decade.
WILL is part of the coalition that includes the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the IRG Action Fund, and the Associated Builders and Contractors in Wisconsin.
There are four pieces of legislation at the Capitol that directly target regulations.
* AB 274/ SB 277 would require lawmakers to review every single one of Wisconsin’s regulations every seven years.
*AB 275/ SB 276 would help people challenge burdensome regulations by allowing them to recover attorneys’ fees for any legal challenges.
*AB 276/ SB 275 would limit the number of new regulations by requiring any new rules be limited to one-per-proposal.
*AB 277/ SB 289 would require state agencies to offset the cost of any new regulations by ending old regulations or eliminating old rules. If lawmakers.
Koenen said that is necessary because the Wisconsin Supreme Court last year issued a ruling that opened the door to a lot more regulations, with a lot less input from legislators.
“Before [that] decision, the legislature had tools to pause or block agency rules that exceeded their statutory authority. After the decision, those tools are all gone,” Koenen added.
This is not the first time Wisconsin has seen a Red Tape Reset proposal. Republican candidate for governor Tom Tiffany is making a similar plan part of his campaign.
