This excerpt is from Christopher Coyne's op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on January 14, 2012.

The start of the New Year brings an opportunity for change. From exercising and spending more time with family to vowing to balance the checkbook, every January people resolve to make their next year better than the last.

And while we're making our individual New Year's resolutions, the government is busily making its own. Jan. 1 saw 40,000 new laws come into effect across the country. In contrast to personal resolutions, which we make to improve ourselves, government "resolutions" affect all of us. Unfortunately, they're also set this year to threaten our economic freedom.