The economic burden of America's accumulating mountain of regulatory requirements is almost unimaginable. According to a study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University that used a 22-industry data set covering the years from 1977 through 2012, by distorting the investment choices that lead to innovation, regulation has created a considerable drag on the economy that amounts to an average reduction in the annual growth rate of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) of 0.8 percent.