It hasn't been mentioned because compared to the last 70 years of high growth there are now fewer regulations on business and industry than ever before, in the US at least.
I'm not sure that simply showing the absolute number of regulatory policies helps to show that the economy is more regulated than ever. For instance, how many of those regulations have to do with the explosion of computers and the Internet, which were industries that simply didn't exist before 1997? I'd like to see a breakdown of the scopes of the regulations and types of the regulations. I'd be inclined to agree with you if the majority of regulations were economically focused, but I suspect that a majority of the regulations are environmental, health, and information related.
