New Regulation vs. Enforcing Existing Regulation

Conservatives rightly view government regulation of the free market with concern, unless it is regulation instituted in order to make markets MORE free, as in removing "thumbs on the scale" that may come from unequal information in a transaction.

What burns me up as a Conservative is presumptive lurch toward regulation as a solution to the nation's fiscal problems, when there was evidence that there was plenty of regulation ALREADY in place--but that it just wasn't used.  This story is yet another example.

Robert Thorn writes here now and again of "regulatory capture", in which the folks doing the regulating are "captured" by the industry they seek to regulate and become willing co-conspirators. I think he's onto something, and it is something important.  But the answer isn't creating new regulatory agencies--it is making the agencies already in place DO THEIR JOBS.  And in some cases, it is Conservatives and Conservative ideology that undercut effectiveness by packing regulatory bodies with industry supporters whose presence is specifically designed to ease up on enforcement.