Market Institute President Charles Sauer has a new column in RealClearMarkets arguing that Washington’s growing appetite for regulation is becoming a bipartisan problem.
In “We Need Government That Threatens Fewer People With Bats,” Sauer takes aim at the increasingly common political instinct to respond to new businesses, technologies, and industries with another ban, mandate, or regulatory regime.
Prediction markets offer a clear example. States such as Utah and Nevada have targeted platforms like Kalshi, either seeking to prohibit them or regulate them like traditional gambling. But Sauer argues that the better response is not to force another innovative industry under the government’s regulatory baseball bat. It is to question whether that bat should be there in the first place.
The same instinct is spreading elsewhere. Politicians are proposing new restrictions on data centers, targeting large technology companies, intervening in college sports, and increasingly deciding which products Americans should be allowed to buy. Different political factions may offer different justifications, but the result is often the same: more barriers for American businesses and entrepreneurs.
As Sauer writes, America will not become more innovative or globally competitive by making it harder to build, invest, experiment, and compete. Policymakers should instead be asking how to remove roadblocks and create an environment where the next generation of entrepreneurs can challenge today’s incumbents.
The answer is not a bigger regulatory baseball bat. It is less regulation, fewer barriers, and a government willing to get out of the way.
Read Charles Sauer’s full column at RealClearMarkets.
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