What is government "red tape" ?

After I wrote my 

March April 2018

economics newsletter,

I wrote over one dozen articles 

for my economics blog,

politics blog and climate 

change blog.

Now it's time for me 

to take up to a week off 

from enjoyable writing, 

to work on my 2017 

federal and state

tax returns. 

They usually take three hours, 

but there's up to a week of delay,

with all the papers sitting on

our dining room table,

until I get motivated enough

to start work !

I always do the taxes myself, 

to better understand

the complicated tax laws

 -- also, I want some "return" 

on my Finance MBA investment !

I'll usually need an extra hour 

if I need to file a new form 

I've never seen before, 

and have to read the directions 

for that form, which are written 

as if the government bureaucrat

writers were paid by the word ! 

I consider current income tax forms,

especially the directions for each form,

to be red tape. 

Before I start the tedious tax work 

this year, I decided to find out

where the phrase "red tape" 

came from.

It seems that English lawyers and

government bureaucrats traditionally

rolled up important papers, and tied

them with a red ribbon, with no

adhesive, which they called 

"red tape".

Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle

popularized the term "red tape".

Every time the papers 

were used,

they had to be untied, 

and then retied after use,

which private citizens

considered an irritating 

waste of time = red tape.