To Regulate Or Not To Regulate

A friend of mine just had her first speeding ticket and decided to contest it. The process seemed simple enough that all you had to do was to set a court date, show up hoping the cop would not be there and argue your case in case he was present. The problem is that she underestimated the inefficiency of the government process. Her first 2-hour wait led her to assign a hearing date. A month later, she showed up to her 9:30AM hearing appointment only to have to wait two hours and a half to assign a court date through the help of what looked like a physically and probably mentality slow lady (over time, the slow process must have caused a slow brain). My friend was appalled by the government inefficiencies and bad customer service. On top of that, her taxes are being wasted in that process.

Well, everybody agrees that government is usually less efficient and customer friendly than private organizations. Imagine having to go through something like that to get a loan modification (which is happening by the way, check this article from CNN). Even worse, imagine if the same process was applied to healthcare. Well no need to imagine too much, just go to countries suggested by Michael Moore (i.e., Canada, France) to experience first-hand how inefficient government is.

I am not advocating that there should be no government involvement and no regulations but we must figure out an optimal point for regulations and rules? While pro-government activists keep pushing for more regulations, we should stop and ask ourselves what is the tipping point when too many regulations will start choking the economy?