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John Merline at Investor's Business Daily writes:

If the federal government's regulatory operation were a business, it would be one of the 50 biggest in the country in terms of revenues, and the third largest in terms of employees, with more people working for it than McDonald's, Ford, Disney and Boeing combined.

Under President Obama, while the economy is struggling to grow and create jobs, the federal regulatory business is booming.

Regulatory agencies have seen their combined budgets grow a healthy 16% since 2008, topping $54 billion, according to the annual "Regulator's Budget," compiled by George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis.

And includes this chart: 

Note that the numbers here are expressed as a percentage of each category of jobs, not overall jobs. I.e., a 1.4 percent increase in private-sector jobs is more than a 5.2 percent increase in federal regulatory jobs. 

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More Blog Posts by Joseph Lawler

http://spectator.org/blog/2011/08/16/ranks-of-regulators-swelling

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