ARLINGTON, Va., April 24 (UPI) -- Remember the Reagan Revolution? It's over. For 30 years the political system has been dismantling the burden of taxes and regulations imposed on the economy by the New Deal.

When U.S. President Ronald Reagan won the White House in 1980, he inherited a tax system that claimed up to 70 percent of taxpayer income and a political culture in which even Republicans were willing to consider price controls as a way of suppressing inflation. The Reagan Revolution eclipsed such thinking, wiping out a generation of liberal Democratic Party presidential nominees -- Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry -- who wanted to return to New Deal policies.

But a counterrevolution is brewing, and the regulators are poised to return to power. Tighter fuel-economy standards are being imposed on autos. Controls are being instituted to rein in mortgage lenders. Suburban jurisdictions around Washington and other cities are mandating "green" construction standards for new homes. And those are just the headlines from today's Washington Post. The drumbeat of doubt about whether market forces can be trusted to deliver the best results has become deafening. In the years ahead, the heavy hand of re-regulation is likely to descend on a wide range of industries:

The poor on-time records and flagging finances of airlines have convinced many observers that Carter-era deregulation is a failure. Fares are much cheaper than back then, but most other industry metrics have deteriorated. Things have gotten so bad that even industry gurus like Robert Crandall are calling for a return to regulation.

Deregulation of electricity generation has become a political hot potato as rising rates convince many users they are being gouged. In some states such as Texas and Massachusetts, rates have risen more than 50 percent since deregulation occurred at the beginning of the decade. A lot of the increase results from higher fuel costs, but rates aren't rising as fast in states that still regulate.