Author: Redactor

“Federal red ink now costs businesses more than $2.1 trillion per year, report says,” an article in The Washington Times tells us.

The cost of federal regulations has grown to more than $2.1 trillion per year, almost as much as the government’s annual haul from income taxes, according to a report released Thursday.

The report, released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and titled “Ten Thousand Commandments,” outlined how the annual cost of red ink has steadily risen due to decisions made by presidents and Congress that impose new requirements and paperwork on businesses.

Mallory Wilson, “Federal red ink now costs businesses more than $2.1 trillion per year, report says,” The Washington Times (April 24, 2025).

“American households were found to pay on average more than $16,000 annually in these hidden regulatory taxes, which eat up 16% of income and 21% of household expenses,” Mallory Wilson reports. “That total exceeds household spending on health care, food, transportation, entertainment, apparel, services and savings, and is higher only than the cost of housing.”

The report is by Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr., and is the 2025 update of CEI’s ongoing coverage of the federal regulatory burden.

One of the most interesting sections of the report is near the very end:

Article I of the Constitution notwithstanding, administrative agencies, not Congress, do most of America’s lawmaking. Congress enacts weighty legislation but delegates the details to agencies. Agencies welcome this delegation and can use it to add to their powers in ways that often go beyond congressional intent.

This imbalance gives rise to the Unconstitutionality Index. The index is the ratio of rules issued by agencies to laws Congress passes.

The index is the featured image (see above) for this Update. Not a lot has changed in Washington — according to this measure, anyway — with the biggest increase in the number of regulations occurring in the first year of President Joe Biden’s term in office.

Michael Shermer, editor of the Skeptic, posted this on X:

Ok, we’re now entering hour 5 of the UAP hearing & they’re talking about privatizing space, colonizing the galaxy, semi-conductors & lasers, renewable energy, etc. I guess that’s what you have to do when you don’t have any actual evidence of aliens. Alas.

@michaelshermer, May 1, 2025.

There are several odd things about this comment:

1. It assumes that “aliens” are behind “UAP” [unidentified anomalous phenomenon], which is hardly a proven thing (many other explanations for the phenomena seem at least partially persuasive);
2. The hearings, which are heavily controlled by Deep State mavens, may serve the very purpose of promoting budgets for the Space Force, for Elon Musk’s Mars push, for extra-terrestrial colonization generally, and more, so it could be (could it be?!?) that the current hearings are actually now serving the actual goals of many trying to direct the UFO disclosure movement;
3. No mention of the oddest element of current disclosures: the long list of historical leaked, FOIAed and found documents from the Pentagon referring to UFOs in no uncertain terms somehow never gets addressed by “experts” at the disclosure hearings; the Government (which bureau?) gives us no official accounting of the meaning of the Twining memo, the Roswell kerfuffle, reports of UFO engagement with U.S. (and Soviet) nuclear missile silos, and more.

This last problem would seem to be paramount. If the current government is to be taken seriously about UFOs, it seems like they must come clean on a long history of secrecy, fakery, lying, and research.

But, it is easy to engage in the haha-gotchas of “skeptics,” demanding big revelations about UFOs, whether “manned” by aliens or Nazis or ghosts, while the cloak of secrecy and non-disclosure agreements are in place. As Brandi Vincent explains at DefenseScoop.com, some headway is being attempted against the heavily compartmentalized secrecy that surrounds the UFO situation. “Lawmakers are drafting new legislative proposals and preparing to host hearings as part of a their ongoing campaign to enhance the U.S. government’s investigations into reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena.”

The Congress members are looking to institutionalize more accountability and disclosure from federal agencies on the historically taboo topic.

“This is not a one-time thing. It’s clear this is not a one-time data dump. This is a systemic change to the process in the way that we are transparent with the American people, and with that we’re working on legislation that will put that into practice,” Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., said Thursday.

Burlison, as well as Reps. Anna Luna, R-Fla., and Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., unveiled those plans during a multi-session congressional briefing on “Understanding UAP: Science, National Security and Innovation,” hosted on Capitol Hill by the UAP Disclosure Fund in collaboration with the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

There, the Congress members heard presentations and participated in open-table discussions from a range of high-profile scientists and former government officials, including Harvard University Professor Dr. Avi Loeb, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon and former oceanographer of the Navy retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet.

“I’ve spoken to [U.S. military personnel] that are still in active duty and their sightings of UAP have become so numerous that they are desensitized to the phenomenon. My point being that the Navy possesses a trove of video evidence and data regarding UAP, and I see no reason why [certain] footage of UAP [on] Navy training ranges cannot be declassified and shared with the scientific community,” Gallaudet said.

At various points during the hours-long event, the lawmakers expressed aims to continue to build momentum for UAP transparency in the U.S. government. . . .

Brandi Vincent, “New UAP legislation in the works as Congress prepares for more hearings,” DefenseScoop, May 1, 2025.

But what are the ufologists saying?

Nothing like what Michael Shermer quips!

Richard Dolan (of Richard Dolan Intelligent Disclosure) doesn’t see evasion and pointlessness in the current disclosure push. He notes the major revelations from a recent interview with one of the most important government advisors in U.S. history, and goes on to offer three major “UAP bombshells” in the very recent past:

1. Matthew Brown, a Pentagon analyst with weapons of mass destruction expertise, identified himself as the author of the “Immaculate Constellation” report about a classified program using AI to collect UAP imagery from government servers. This was on the Weaponized podcast.
2. Physicist Dr. Hal Puthoff’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, where he discussed his work on remote viewing programs (!), UAP propulsion physics, and UFO crash retrievals.
3. Dr. Eric Davis, Christopher Mellon, and military officials presented scientific evidence and national security concerns about UAP to lawmakers at the continuing UAP hearings in Congress. They emphasized the need for increased transparency and data sharing across scientific and military communities.

Paul Jacob has written several times on this bizarre subject.