Protective governmental infrastructure

The administration s efforts to undo the protective governmental infrastructure met with only limited success. Congress did not roll back a single substantive statutory protection, and in 1984 and 1986 it expanded the protections afforded by two hazardous waste control and cleanup statutes. An attempt to enact omnibus regulatory reform legislation likewise failed. Administration insiders later admitted that they had failed to lay the necessary foundation of... 

The forgone protections highlighted in the previous seven chapters were not attributable to any inherent limitations on the ability of government to protect its citizens. They were the predictable consequences of the regulatory and tort reforms put into place during the Laissez Faire Revival. This chapter highlights the institutional impact of the three assaults on the protective governmental infrastructure. 

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