Pointless Laws - only Direct Democracy can reduce this Avalanche

 "Politics has become a dismal race to pass as many pointless laws as possible" (Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph)

Given the avalanche of laws and regulations produced in the UK but also in all other countries, and including the EU, there is a need to introduce Direct Democracy as a safety valve and filter.

Inconsistent and chaotic Policy Making in EU

We could not agree more with Michael Cembalest. The main problem is the lack of any proper democratic structure. This allows politicians and interest groups that are far removed from the citizens to devise laws and regulations that are only adding more costs - directly and through channeling behaviour into unproductive (and sometimes damaging) activities.

Legislation runs riot

The new Finance Bill just published in the UK runs to 686 pages and nearly as many explanatory notes. For comparison, during 1980-84 the Bill was on average 153 pages long. The trend is similar in most other countries. Nothing illustrates more clearly that the legislative process is out of control and that a radical change of the system of government is required.

Too many laws - not only in Greece

One of the problems that has been highlighted by the 'Greek tragedy' is the tremendous number of new laws that has been created in that country over the past decades.

But Greece is not alone. All modern 'Democracies' are spewing out page after page of (often poorly worded) laws that have been pushed through by the party machine that happens to hold power at the moment.
While the introduction of Direct Democracy would not mean that no new laws will be passed, it provides at least the hope that the threat of closer scrutiny in a referendum will be a warning sign to the Governments as well as Parliaments and help to make sure that only legislation that is really required will be put on the statute book.

Subsidies: how can wasteful spending be controlled?

An example for the way the identity between the executive and legislative arms of government permits the waste of taxpayer money is given by the federal state of Upper Austria. The province spends roughly 1.5 billion Euros on subsidies in a year. That means about 1,000 Euros per head of its population, a not insubstantial sum as it means about 3-4,000 Euros per average family. Naturally, this largess is defended with the argument that laws mandate most of that spending but the undemocratic nature of this spending becomes obvious when one reflects that the same government that spends the money is also identical with the legislative majority that created these 'laws' in the first place. Only a mandatory referendum on all spending measures and a separation of the executive and legislative branch of government will be able to stop abuses such as these.