Democrats love regulations and rules. Their desire to impose them goes beyond a desire to create a nanny state. They desire a bully state where they control major aspects of society.

The upside for them: they can count the dollars coming in as businesses and professionals try to soften or influence the impact of the rules. Trial lawyers will have new avenues to enrich their bank accounts by filing suit after suit against businesses for violating obscure regs that never before existed.

The absurdity of this approach is clear in the ObamaCare legislation. Among its features are a requirement that all businesses file 1099s for any person or vendor that they pay $600 or more over the course of the year. This will be a nightmare for many small businessmen already laboring under the impact of existing rules , as well as other ObamaCare impacts, as this Investors Business Daily column makes clear.

One dynamic might mitigate the burden on small businesses, but at the expense of other small businesses. To make it easier to comply, businesses will channel purchases towards larger businesses; thereby minimizing the need to issue many 1099s. But the feds won't stop there. This New York Times column makes it clear that we are entering a new era: one of maximal rules and regulations.

A new age of regulation is well under way in Washington, a fact somewhat obscured by the high-profile debates over the health care overhaul and financial oversight system and by fresh calls for greater federal vigilance spurred by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the deaths of coal miners in West Virginia.

The surge in rule-making has resulted from an unusual confluence of factors, from repeated outbreaks of food-borne illnesses to workplace disasters. Some industry groups, wanting foreign competitors to adhere to the same standards they must meet, have backed new federal mandates. The push for some of the measures began at the end of the Bush administration, a tacit acknowledgment that its deregulatory agenda had gone too far.

Still, the new aggressiveness reflects the new cops on the beat, and the contrast with the Bush administration is an intentionally sharp one. While the Bush administration mostly favored voluntary compliance by industry, senior Obama administration officials argue that carefully crafted regulation can be a positive force.

"We start from the perspective that we all want a cleaner environment, longer lives, improved safety," said Peter R. Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, which reviews major regulations. "Smart regulation can make people's lives better off."

But complaints from industry leaders are intensifying. Manufacturers, home builders, toymakers and others say that Washington has been overzealous about imposing new requirements, and they warn of serious consequences for businesses and consumers.