THE 1992 REGULATORY MORATORIUM - DID IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE

What exactly is the goal of a regulatory moratorium? Have the goals ev er been achieved? On January 28, 1992, President Bush imposed a 90-day regulatory moratorium on new federal regulations. According to the Wh ite House, this moratorium war aimed at reducing the burden of governm ent regulation on the economy. This regulatory moratorium seemed to be in response to a number of concerns by the administration. First, it provided a partial scapegoat to the overall sluggish economy that refu sed to show any signs of strong growth. Second President Bush, who led the Task Force for Regulatory Relief under the Reagan administration, war perceived by many to be reregulating America (Rauch, 1991). By im posing the moratorium on regulations, the Bush administration could hy pothetically deflect concerns about the economy, slow down the number of regulatory actions, and show how serious it war in its fight agains t overregulation. By providing information and statistics on regulator y output for several high-producing regulatory agencies, Scott Furlong examines the impact of the moratorium on the regulatory agencies' out put and probes the question of whether such moratoria can make a diffe rence.