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About The Heritage Foundation
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. We believe the principles and ideas of the American Founding are worth conserving and renewing. As policy entrepreneurs, we believe the most effective solutions are consistent with those ideas and principles.
When unemployment is reaching heights we have not seen in years, and cities are on the brink of bankruptcy, what is the Obama administration focused on? Street signs. Not the broken ones that need to be replaced, but all of them, even if they are brand new. The reason? Most of them are written in all caps and according to the new 800 page book of Uniform Traffic Control Devices signs in ALL CAPS are not good enough anymore.
According to data from the Government Accountability Office, federal agencies promulgated 43 rules during the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010,[4] that impose significant burdens on the private sector. The total costs for these rules were estimated by the regulators themselves at some $28 billion, the highest level since at least 1981, the earliest date for which figures are available.[5] Fifteen of the 43 major rules issued last during the fiscal year involved financial regulation. Another five stem from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act adopted by Congress in early 2010. Ten others come from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including the first mandatory reporting of “greenhouse gas” emissions and $10.8 billion in new automotive fuel economy standards (adopted jointly with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)). Overall, counting the fuel standards, the EPA is responsible for the lion’s share of the reported regulatory costs—some $23.2 billion.
Taking the decisions out of the hands of local officials and putting them in the hands of unelected federal bureaucrats is a trend that will only accelerate.
There are people outside the federal government in favor of the new regulations. 3M, the company that will make the reflective material that is now required on all street signs in the United States by 2018 fought hard for these regulations.
We have seen regulations get relaxed before though. The Obama Administration is handing out health care waivers left and right to the biggest corporations, but they are not doing much for small businesses that will bear the brunt of the health care cost. They seem to be given out on a whim, so maybe the biggest cities will be exempt from the new street sign regulations, but not small towns like Dinwiddie County.
the president is just reaching out for more ways to waste. This will not only waste, it will inconvenience.
Proof the government has too much money as they use time to think where to waste while ignoring efficient measures, protections and standards of their actual duties! Time to get from the president, what exactly he thinks his job is?
Don Orlando on November 29th, 2010 at 5:51pm said:
more wasteful spending……..if the repubs are not giving tax breaks to the elite and the large corps, the Libs are wasting it on meaningless things….no wonder America is bankrupt
Peter, Portland, Oregon on November 29th, 2010 at 6:16pm said:
This bit of insanity confirms Rand Paul’s recommendation that Congress – and their bureaucrats – work every other year. Idle hands in this case really do indicate idle minds. Just how much are we Americans willing to take from a Federal Government grown too big and far too powerful.
Tammy Beckwith-Hare on November 29th, 2010 at 6:36pm said:
Why this is great news! Talk about a job creator!
Dan Downing, Reading, PA 19605 on November 29th, 2010 at 6:44pm said:
This is typical behavior of the frustrated and incompetent, When faced with significant tasks they are unable to accomplish, they invent substitutes which have the advantage of being easy to do and are without intrinsic merit
All the thesaurus words listed along side ‘moronic’ come to mind when one reads about the street signs. In a rational world, these people would have been rendered unable to breed long ago. The gene pool is precious,and is being polluted daily. So sad.
Harsh opinion? Yes, and not entirely serious, but one does wish there were fewer idiots running things.
Doc Kimble, 46725 on November 29th, 2010 at 7:48pm said:
In the back of every dimly lit shop of every rural street department, is a box of green letters and some aluminum punch pressed, reflective signage. My advice, forget lower case, have the local art guild pick the most elegant easy to read font you can find, get it approved by city council, pay a local sign shop to silk screen them, and a local machine shop to cut them out with a cheap laser cutter or water jet. Then glue them on with epoxy glue or hot melt glue from anyplace except 3M. Goofy politicians pricey, classy easily read signs that highlight your community, priceless!!
auzerais310, SanJose, CA on November 29th, 2010 at 7:56pm said:
Surprised that the Obama Administration isn’t mandating that all signs (including school names, etc) must also be printed in corresponding Cyrillic characters.
Terry Wilson Muskogee, OK on November 29th, 2010 at 8:01pm said:
Completely outrageous, but completely predictable. Statists want to control everything everywhere for everyone – the key is control. That these ridiculous statists (actually they are National Socialists or, as China asserts, State Socialism or some such nonsense) want to regulate the capital vs. small letters on street signs is par for the course. This is just a tiny part of what they really want to control and now they have given the bureaucracy carte blanche to impose rules on every aspect of our lives. They certainly don’t care if there are laws that permit their actions or a Constitution that forbids it – the important thing is to get the control in place and dare Congress to repeal it.
Julie, Show Low Arizona on November 29th, 2010 at 8:49pm said:
It’s time for the Tenth Amendment to go into full force and effect throughout the country! This is so unconstitutional and perhaps even illegal! Cities and towns MUST ‘Just Say No!’
Mike P, Pawtucket, RI on November 29th, 2010 at 9:16pm said:
It’s amazing what people will try to blame on Obama. The compliance dates for letter sizes (2012, 2018) are from the 2003 MUTCD, not the 2009 edition. The upper/lower case rule in the 2009 MUTCD was first drafted in January 2008. As far as …communities having to go out and replace all their signs, the important quote from the video is “…whenever these signs are changed”; in other words, the Heritage Foundation is completely wrong when they assert that signs “need to be replaced…even if they are brand new.”
Not that the President has anything to do with the MUTCD, anyway…
Dan Downing, Reading, PA 19605 on November 29th, 2010 at 10:38pm said:
Any town, city, State or village that goes along and pays for this nonsense should fire its mayor, aldermen, city council, etc. I have long maintained, as a citizen of Pennsylvania, that the Highway Department is both the training ground for incompetents and the dumping ground for the criminally inept.
I don’t know what all the details of these rules are, but if they mean street signs will be in larger type and reflective, bring them on!
I am tired of getting lost and making wrong turns because the local folks already know the names of their streets, but out of towners and out of staters like me, who are also aging Boomers, have to get right under the (not always there) sign to read it.
Linda Staples Reedy on November 30th, 2010 at 8:44am said:
We not only need to do the above suggestions, but we need to get the average person -who is intelligent-knows how to balance a check book-go see the president and those in power(cause he isn’t doing this all by himself) it’s the democrats too. I am an average, intelligent, accountant, who has worked Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurances with healthcare facilities. I’ve owned 2 business, raised kids right with God in their life, and it is get God back in the picture First, get back to the basics Second, treat the ones that voted or didn’t vote for you with dignity and respect Pres. Obama. We are not stupid. Do your job the right way. You are all wrong. Do it now, stop the waste and I can show you how, but so can so many other people. Very smart people waiting in the wings to show you because you don’t know how or you would be doing it. Step aside we are going to take over. Republicans can do it. We have brains. I guess I told him Huh? Call me Pres. Obama if you can. I’ll help ya. The simple smart one. Street signs are the least of your problems.
Dave Robertson,Houston,Tx. on November 30th, 2010 at 12:12pm said:
Street signs are a local matter. What gives the federal government the authority to mandate standards for a cities sighnage?
Hugh, Oregon on November 30th, 2010 at 3:14pm said:
“Taking the decisions out of the hands of local officials and putting them in the hands of unelected federal bureaucrats is a trend that will only accelerate.” How is this possibly happening? I suggest the following:
Appoint un-confirmed Czars to adapt Federal regulations to your agenda, no problem.
Use the Federal bureaucracy to trump state and local governments, no problem.
Use the Federal bureaucracy to install an agenda that cannot be legislated, no problem.
Use the Federal bureaucracy to bypass Constitutional processes, no problem.
What about our Constitution? Well we had one, but the current Administration with his un-confirmed Czars, the Democrat Congress and Federal bureaucracies are destroying it. It is time for the States or upcoming new Congress to act.
skanondo, new york on November 30th, 2010 at 3:50pm said:
I FAIL TO UNDERSTAND WHY HAVING All The Letters In caps is more difficult to read than having some letters in lower case. I learned to read at an early age, and can read both CAPS, and lower case. Pure govt. interference.
Robert Morrow, New Mexico on November 30th, 2010 at 3:53pm said:
Just work the system with the same red tape. Work on it by changing one sign per year. Other than that tell the Feds to take a leap and go on strike against the idiots. If I was still in my small business I would work hard to get all small business to go on strike against the government, just close shop and throw all employees in the line for unemployment check. As long as we have criminals like Reid in power we are staring at hard times worse than the great depression and I lived through that. Reid is a briber and bribed others to pass a bill and yet he has not been impeached, WHY?
eddi in La Jolla on November 30th, 2010 at 4:06pm said:
who in the world made up the idea that capital letters were a negative attitude.
how rediculous is that! (notice my exclamation point, should I have not used that, did that offend anyone?) Using capital letters is what one does when teaching children to print script. Would one, then, believe that the children thought the letters were yelling at them. Yes, indeed, it is someone who does not have enough to do to earn their own way that sit on a cushion dreaming up the obscene like this one. Have you noticed that all STOP signs are caps. Is that offensive?
Where is the study about small case letters? Who made up this gobbledigook?
David R. (Canada) on November 30th, 2010 at 6:59pm said:
This is a perfect example of an inept government that doesn’t have an original idea in their head.
Here in Canada this was a regular trick of Liberal governments over the years.
Eg. -Metrification when we could least afford it under the pretext that it would improve trade (85% of our trade at that time was with the USA. Now it’s at 87%).
-The re-patriation of the constitution when we were in a major recession (early 1980′s).
You can be sure if there’re problems with the economy then the government will find some way to distract/spend money.
Connie, San Diego on November 30th, 2010 at 7:41pm said:
Typical DC BS and interference where they don’t belong. Sadly, all they know how to do is spend and regulate when they need to save and stay out of state, county and city business.
Mike P, Pawtucket, RI on November 30th, 2010 at 9:51pm said:
One more thing… not only does the upper/lower case rule apply only to NEW signs (i.e., no one has to go out and replace a brand new all-caps street sign), but the only penalty for non-compliance is a loss of federal highway aid. In other words, any city, town, county, state, etc. is welcome to make its own rules on street signs, as long as they’re also willing to foot the bill themselves. If the feds are paying, it only makes sense that they should be able to set the standards, right?
Karen Smith, St Charles, MO on December 1st, 2010 at 11:06am said:
Just say no. By the time they get around to litigating it, Obama and the Dems will be in the dustbin of history and it won’t be our problem anymore….simple.
Steve Hawkins, TX on December 1st, 2010 at 11:19am said:
Mary, if you can not see or read, you need to have enough judgment to call a cab. If you are able to read and see, why don’t you get a map and plan your trip. I don’t think it really matters how much money we spend or what kinds of signs we have, some of our citizens will always be disoriented or lost. Fairness would not require me to pay for your lack of judgment or planning! Remember, your freedom, including that to drive, comes with a little responsibility for ourselves. Get some!
Airborne 101!
jose fountain mi on December 2nd, 2010 at 11:31am said:
i just would like to know who is in charge or the ruler of this once great nation. i wish to only better serve my true masters and kiss their feet ….YEA RIGHT!! they are few we are many welcome to the new world order.
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Author: 
26 Responses to “Federal Regulations and Small Towns”
sjschreiner, Omaha NE on November 29th, 2010 at 4:12pm said:
You people wanted hope and change, well here it comes again !! DC has officially become a circus, and there is nothing there but clowns.
Bobbie on November 29th, 2010 at 4:22pm said:
the president is just reaching out for more ways to waste. This will not only waste, it will inconvenience.
Proof the government has too much money as they use time to think where to waste while ignoring efficient measures, protections and standards of their actual duties! Time to get from the president, what exactly he thinks his job is?
Don Orlando on November 29th, 2010 at 5:51pm said:
more wasteful spending……..if the repubs are not giving tax breaks to the elite and the large corps, the Libs are wasting it on meaningless things….no wonder America is bankrupt
Peter, Portland, Oregon on November 29th, 2010 at 6:16pm said:
This bit of insanity confirms Rand Paul’s recommendation that Congress – and their bureaucrats – work every other year. Idle hands in this case really do indicate idle minds. Just how much are we Americans willing to take from a Federal Government grown too big and far too powerful.
Tammy Beckwith-Hare on November 29th, 2010 at 6:36pm said:
Why this is great news! Talk about a job creator!
Dan Downing, Reading, PA 19605 on November 29th, 2010 at 6:44pm said:
This is typical behavior of the frustrated and incompetent, When faced with significant tasks they are unable to accomplish, they invent substitutes which have the advantage of being easy to do and are without intrinsic merit
All the thesaurus words listed along side ‘moronic’ come to mind when one reads about the street signs. In a rational world, these people would have been rendered unable to breed long ago. The gene pool is precious,and is being polluted daily. So sad.
Harsh opinion? Yes, and not entirely serious, but one does wish there were fewer idiots running things.
Doc Kimble, 46725 on November 29th, 2010 at 7:48pm said:
In the back of every dimly lit shop of every rural street department, is a box of green letters and some aluminum punch pressed, reflective signage. My advice, forget lower case, have the local art guild pick the most elegant easy to read font you can find, get it approved by city council, pay a local sign shop to silk screen them, and a local machine shop to cut them out with a cheap laser cutter or water jet. Then glue them on with epoxy glue or hot melt glue from anyplace except 3M. Goofy politicians pricey, classy easily read signs that highlight your community, priceless!!
auzerais310, SanJose, CA on November 29th, 2010 at 7:56pm said:
Surprised that the Obama Administration isn’t mandating that all signs (including school names, etc) must also be printed in corresponding Cyrillic characters.
Terry Wilson Muskogee, OK on November 29th, 2010 at 8:01pm said:
Completely outrageous, but completely predictable. Statists want to control everything everywhere for everyone – the key is control. That these ridiculous statists (actually they are National Socialists or, as China asserts, State Socialism or some such nonsense) want to regulate the capital vs. small letters on street signs is par for the course. This is just a tiny part of what they really want to control and now they have given the bureaucracy carte blanche to impose rules on every aspect of our lives. They certainly don’t care if there are laws that permit their actions or a Constitution that forbids it – the important thing is to get the control in place and dare Congress to repeal it.
Julie, Show Low Arizona on November 29th, 2010 at 8:49pm said:
It’s time for the Tenth Amendment to go into full force and effect throughout the country! This is so unconstitutional and perhaps even illegal! Cities and towns MUST ‘Just Say No!’
Mike P, Pawtucket, RI on November 29th, 2010 at 9:16pm said:
It’s amazing what people will try to blame on Obama. The compliance dates for letter sizes (2012, 2018) are from the 2003 MUTCD, not the 2009 edition. The upper/lower case rule in the 2009 MUTCD was first drafted in January 2008. As far as …communities having to go out and replace all their signs, the important quote from the video is “…whenever these signs are changed”; in other words, the Heritage Foundation is completely wrong when they assert that signs “need to be replaced…even if they are brand new.”
Not that the President has anything to do with the MUTCD, anyway…
Dan Downing, Reading, PA 19605 on November 29th, 2010 at 10:38pm said:
Any town, city, State or village that goes along and pays for this nonsense should fire its mayor, aldermen, city council, etc. I have long maintained, as a citizen of Pennsylvania, that the Highway Department is both the training ground for incompetents and the dumping ground for the criminally inept.
Mary NJ on November 30th, 2010 at 8:32am said:
I don’t know what all the details of these rules are, but if they mean street signs will be in larger type and reflective, bring them on!
I am tired of getting lost and making wrong turns because the local folks already know the names of their streets, but out of towners and out of staters like me, who are also aging Boomers, have to get right under the (not always there) sign to read it.
Linda Staples Reedy on November 30th, 2010 at 8:44am said:
We not only need to do the above suggestions, but we need to get the average person -who is intelligent-knows how to balance a check book-go see the president and those in power(cause he isn’t doing this all by himself) it’s the democrats too. I am an average, intelligent, accountant, who has worked Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurances with healthcare facilities. I’ve owned 2 business, raised kids right with God in their life, and it is get God back in the picture First, get back to the basics Second, treat the ones that voted or didn’t vote for you with dignity and respect Pres. Obama. We are not stupid. Do your job the right way. You are all wrong. Do it now, stop the waste and I can show you how, but so can so many other people. Very smart people waiting in the wings to show you because you don’t know how or you would be doing it. Step aside we are going to take over. Republicans can do it. We have brains. I guess I told him Huh? Call me Pres. Obama if you can. I’ll help ya. The simple smart one. Street signs are the least of your problems.
Dave Robertson,Houston,Tx. on November 30th, 2010 at 12:12pm said:
Street signs are a local matter. What gives the federal government the authority to mandate standards for a cities sighnage?
TJS, FL on November 30th, 2010 at 1:22pm said:
Bulldoze DC.
Hugh, Oregon on November 30th, 2010 at 3:14pm said:
“Taking the decisions out of the hands of local officials and putting them in the hands of unelected federal bureaucrats is a trend that will only accelerate.” How is this possibly happening? I suggest the following:
Appoint un-confirmed Czars to adapt Federal regulations to your agenda, no problem.
Use the Federal bureaucracy to trump state and local governments, no problem.
Use the Federal bureaucracy to install an agenda that cannot be legislated, no problem.
Use the Federal bureaucracy to bypass Constitutional processes, no problem.
What about our Constitution? Well we had one, but the current Administration with his un-confirmed Czars, the Democrat Congress and Federal bureaucracies are destroying it. It is time for the States or upcoming new Congress to act.
skanondo, new york on November 30th, 2010 at 3:50pm said:
I FAIL TO UNDERSTAND WHY HAVING All The Letters In caps is more difficult to read than having some letters in lower case. I learned to read at an early age, and can read both CAPS, and lower case. Pure govt. interference.
Robert Morrow, New Mexico on November 30th, 2010 at 3:53pm said:
Just work the system with the same red tape. Work on it by changing one sign per year. Other than that tell the Feds to take a leap and go on strike against the idiots. If I was still in my small business I would work hard to get all small business to go on strike against the government, just close shop and throw all employees in the line for unemployment check. As long as we have criminals like Reid in power we are staring at hard times worse than the great depression and I lived through that. Reid is a briber and bribed others to pass a bill and yet he has not been impeached, WHY?
eddi in La Jolla on November 30th, 2010 at 4:06pm said:
who in the world made up the idea that capital letters were a negative attitude.
how rediculous is that! (notice my exclamation point, should I have not used that, did that offend anyone?) Using capital letters is what one does when teaching children to print script. Would one, then, believe that the children thought the letters were yelling at them. Yes, indeed, it is someone who does not have enough to do to earn their own way that sit on a cushion dreaming up the obscene like this one. Have you noticed that all STOP signs are caps. Is that offensive?
Where is the study about small case letters? Who made up this gobbledigook?
David R. (Canada) on November 30th, 2010 at 6:59pm said:
This is a perfect example of an inept government that doesn’t have an original idea in their head.
Here in Canada this was a regular trick of Liberal governments over the years.
Eg. -Metrification when we could least afford it under the pretext that it would improve trade (85% of our trade at that time was with the USA. Now it’s at 87%).
-The re-patriation of the constitution when we were in a major recession (early 1980′s).
You can be sure if there’re problems with the economy then the government will find some way to distract/spend money.
Connie, San Diego on November 30th, 2010 at 7:41pm said:
Typical DC BS and interference where they don’t belong. Sadly, all they know how to do is spend and regulate when they need to save and stay out of state, county and city business.
Mike P, Pawtucket, RI on November 30th, 2010 at 9:51pm said:
One more thing… not only does the upper/lower case rule apply only to NEW signs (i.e., no one has to go out and replace a brand new all-caps street sign), but the only penalty for non-compliance is a loss of federal highway aid. In other words, any city, town, county, state, etc. is welcome to make its own rules on street signs, as long as they’re also willing to foot the bill themselves. If the feds are paying, it only makes sense that they should be able to set the standards, right?
Karen Smith, St Charles, MO on December 1st, 2010 at 11:06am said:
Just say no. By the time they get around to litigating it, Obama and the Dems will be in the dustbin of history and it won’t be our problem anymore….simple.
Steve Hawkins, TX on December 1st, 2010 at 11:19am said:
Mary, if you can not see or read, you need to have enough judgment to call a cab. If you are able to read and see, why don’t you get a map and plan your trip. I don’t think it really matters how much money we spend or what kinds of signs we have, some of our citizens will always be disoriented or lost. Fairness would not require me to pay for your lack of judgment or planning! Remember, your freedom, including that to drive, comes with a little responsibility for ourselves. Get some!
Airborne 101!
jose fountain mi on December 2nd, 2010 at 11:31am said:
i just would like to know who is in charge or the ruler of this once great nation. i wish to only better serve my true masters and kiss their feet ….YEA RIGHT!! they are few we are many welcome to the new world order.