8.8 billion hours of federal paperwork

[Valin]

Chicago Tribune:

12/31/11

That clipping has to be somewhere on this desk. Maybe it's under the Do It Right Now pile. No, there it is, its little headline protruding sassily from the Really Urgent So Don't Even Think About Stalling pile: "White House tallies hours spent filling out forms." A few weeks back we stuck the article into, well, all this end-of-year paperwork.

The article reported that the time needed to comply with federal paperwork — that is, the amount of time all of us spend filling out government forms — totaled 8.8 billion hours in fiscal 2010. As *The Wall Street Journal's account then offered:

The good news? That's lower than the 9.8 billion hours logged the previous year.

The bad news? The drop is mostly due to a change in how federal agencies estimate how long it takes to complete their paperwork.

(Snip)

Suspicious, we pulled up the government's *314-page (ahem) report on the diminishing demands of its own paperwork. The report's title only hints at the delicious reading under its covers: "Information Collection Budget of the United States Government, 2011, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs."

Ah, there it is, "Regulatory." You knew this path would lead to the peppery political debate about the burdens of government regulations.

Knock yourself out on that one, but we're not going there today. Instead we're going to the red folders:

(Snip)

We were less heartened, though, to learn from this more recent report that, in 2010, employers devoted nearly 70 million additional hours to claiming a new credit for hiring people, and restaurant workers allocated 14.5 million hours to posting their menus' calorie counts.

(Snip)


* links mine

Addendum H/T CGP

[Sanguine]

This is an interesting article for the Chicago Trib. Isn't that David Axlerod's old employer, too?

[Rheo]

Happy birthday Sanguine!

[clearvision]

This is an interesting article for the Chicago Trib. Isn't that David Axlerod's old employer, too?

From our Key Players Database under Community:

 

"Axelrod went to work for The Tribune the day after he graduated in 1977, and, at age 27, became the paper’s youngest-ever chief political writer."

 

David Axelrod

(Former) White House Staff

[Sanguine]

Thanks! And, a happy New Year to you.

[Sanguine]

Yes, and I believe he was involved (allegedly ) in the leak of a number of sealed documents that sunk the candidacies of several early 0bama opponents.