News Release
Report: Trump Deregulation Proceeds, But Threatened by Trump Regulation
The Competitive Enterprise Institute issued a report today on the burden imposed by federal government regulations: Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2020
Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers,…
Op-Eds
New Trump Executive Order On Deregulation To Kickstart Job Creation And Economic Growth
In a new Executive Order on Regulatory Relief to Support Economic Recovery, President Trump says “The virus has attacked our Nation’s economy…
News Release
New Executive Order to Stimulate Recovery by Deregulating Builds on CEI’s #NeverNeeded Campaign
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) commended President Trump’s decision today to sign a new Executive Order directing cabinet members and agency heads to immediately identify…
Citation
#NeverNeeded Regulation Report: White House Can Speed Up COVID-19 Recovery by Cutting Regulations without Congress
In a new paper released today, CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews outlines several deregulatory measures the White House could take without Congress that…
Study
Pen, Phone, and Eraser?
There have now been several layers of congressional rescue-and-stimulus response to the coronavirus crisis, and there will be more “phases” to come. Given partisan discord,…
Op-Eds
A Proposed 13-Point Trump Agenda For Economic Stimulus By Reforming Regulation
I remembered wondering in 2017 whether the federal government would be larger or smaller after four years of Trump. We had our answer even before the…
Blog
The Coronavirus Outbreak Highlights Importance of the Artificial Intelligence Debate
Tracing of individuals and other measures involving artificial intelligence are in the news with respect to managing individuals’ reentry into the economy in the wake…
Forbes
How The White House “Guidance For Regulation of Artificial Intelligence” Invites Overregulation
Excessive top-down federal funding and governance of scientific and technology research will be increasingly incompatible with a future of lightly regulated science and technology specifically, and with…
Forbes
How The White House “Guidance For Regulation Of Artificial Intelligence” Invites Overregulation
Excessive top-down federal funding and governance of scientific and technology research will be increasingly incompatible with a future of lightly regulated science and…
Forbes
How To Make The Phase 4 Coronavirus Response All About Regulatory Reform (Not Just Spending)
When it comes to spending money we don’ t have and calling it rescue, the nation has been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. We…
Forbes
Phase 4 Coronavirus Infrastructure Spending To Start At $2 Trillion
There’s still a chance for what next juggernauts America’s way to be made more sensible. We can liberalize infrastructure and the regulation of it rather than…
News Release
CEI Experts Blast Attempts to Politicize COVID-19 Relief Bill
While the nation suffers, Washington has descended into an unseemly squabble over the latest COVID-19 relief bill. Politicians from all quarters are attempting to expand…
Blog
A One-Stop Executive Order 13891 Guidance Document Portal
If agencies are required to compile and list all their sub-regulatory guidance documents and post, link and consistently index them on a portal, can we…
Forbes
We’re Not Biased, We’re Liberals: How Cultural Leftism Will Slant Social Media Regulation
As debates over bias, harm, misinformation and election interference on social media unfold, it will be interesting to watch whether or not mainstream media opposes…
Forbes
We’re Not Biased, We’re Liberals: How Cultural Leftism Will Slant Social Media Regulation
“Water? What’s water?” —The fish As debates over bias, harm, misinformation and election interference on social media unfold, it will be interesting to…
Blog
A Partial Inventory of Federal Agency Guidance Documents Before Trump’s Official Compendium Comes Due
Reporting on "regulatory dark matter" is still falling short.
Washington Examiner
Trump: Slashing Regulations Boosted Economy More Than Tax Cuts
Washington Examiner cites senior fellow Clyde Wayne Crews on Trump-era regulations: What’s more, CEI’s Clyde Wayne Crews reported that the administration issued…
Washington Examiner
One Nation, Ungovernable: Trump White House Releases Fiscal Year 2021 Federal Budget
There has not been a federal budget surplus since Bill Clinton was president. Not long ago, President Trump’s New Foundation for American…
Forbes
Deepfakes and Beyond: Who Wins if Social Media Platforms are Regulated?
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone except you and people you agree with would just STFU? Attributed indirectly to Voltaire, the sentiment “I disapprove of…
Forbes
Trump White House Quietly Releases Overdue Regulatory Cost-Benefit Reports
The long-standing presumption that national top-down regulation of the economy from Washington brings substantial net benefits dominates public policy. But how much timely review of federal…
The Washington Examiner
Unconstitutionality Index: Swamp Imposed 20 Regulations for Every Law over Decade
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President for Policy Clyde Wayne Crews on the “Unconstitutionality Index.” In detailing his “Unconstitutionality Index,” Clyde…
Forbes
Trump’ Year In Regulation, 2019
Today, Tuesday, December 31, 2019, is the last federal workday of the year. This presents an opportunity to review the heft of the Federal Register and its…
Forbes
The 2020 Unconstitutionality Index: 28 Federal Rules And Regulations For Every Law Congress Passes
Even in a presidential administration bent on cutting regulation (see my 2019 overview), the number of rules from hundreds of federal agencies …
Blog
Sugarplums or Lumps of Coal? White House’s 192 Big Rules in Pipeline Herald More Regulation than Deregulation
No matter the presidential administration, every year there are thousands of federal rules and regulations compared to a relative handful of laws passed by Congress.
Blog
What Regulations Did Trump Administration Add in 2019?
The Trump administration recently issued “Regulatory Reform Results for Fiscal Year 2019.” This is its fiscal year 2019 status update on the one-in, two-out directive initiated in Executive…
Blog
What Regulations Did the Trump Administration Eliminate in 2019?
The Trump administration has issued its fiscal year 2019 status update on one-in, two-out. It’s called “Regulatory Reform Results for Fiscal Year 2019.” According to…
Forbes
How Regulation of “Harmful Speech” Online Will Do the Real Harm
Much of the debate over online speech concerns whether or not conservatives are “censored” by big tech. But there are bigger fish to fry.
The Wall Street Journal
A Republican Proposal to Feed the Country to the Swamp
Progressives dream of making the District of Columbia into a state, but now a pair of Republican senators have the same vision reflected through a…
Blog
Trump Regulatory Reform Agenda By the Numbers: End of One-In, Two-Out?
The Trump administration has released the Fall 2019 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Late and incomplete compared to the last…
Forbes
Helicopter Government? How the Internet of Things Enables Pushbutton Regulation from a Distance
Artificial intelligence can be curiously stupid. My Android phone still thinks I’m “wing Cruz” and doesn’t know my kids. Pandora overplays The Church and Deadmau5…
Blog
The Unmeasured Costs of Federal Agency Liberation from Congress, Self-Funding, and Permanence
In considering the overall costs of regulation, little attention is given to the intractability of the administrative state itself. Congress shows little appetite for restraining…
The Epoch Times
Sen. Hawley, Blackburn Propose Massive Relocation of Federal Departments, Agencies
The Epoch Times cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on Ten Thousand Commandments: Exactly how many federal departments, independent agencies,…
Blog
Deep State Guide to Resisting Trump’s Executive Orders on Guidance Document Abuse
Competitive Enterprise Institute founder and “despairing optimist” Fred L. Smith, Jr. lamented to me once: “It’s so hard to centrally plan deregulation!”…
Daily Torch
Trump Keeps Promise to Cut Regulations, Make Them More Reasonable and Less Costly
Daily Torch cites Vice President for Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on regulatory dark matter: The Vice President for Policy at the…
Forbes
New Trump Orders: Guidance Should Be a Shield, Not a Sword
Forbes cites Vice President for Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on regulatory dark matter: These actions are the latest attempt to ensure…
News Release
CEI Commends Executive Action Restricting Use of Regulatory Dark Matter
The White House today announced President Trump will sign two executive orders aimed at stopping the practice of agencies using guidance documents to effectively implement…
Blog
Costs of Economic Distortions Caused by ‘Ordinary’ Federal Spending, Subsidies, and Stimulus
While routine ground-level federal spending is less glamorous than interventionist national agendas, socialization of properties and resources, or economic “stimulus” and “big science” crusades, the…
News Release
CEI Congratulates New OIRA Director Paul Ray and Encourages Him to Embrace Reforms
The White House announced today that Paul Ray will be the next director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office…
Blog
Costs of Government Steering by Direct Ownership or Control of Resources
If one thinks government ought to run a sector of the economy (single-payer health care, education, retirement, energy), then almost by definition that individual would…
Blog
Vast Regulatory Costs of Top-Down National Plans, Agendas, and Legislative Schemes
If government steers in some societal, industrial, or sector-specific endeavor via top-down national plans, agendas, or legislative schemes, it can generate ongoing regulatory costs even…
Forbes
Will the Regulatory Right-to-Know Act Ever Be Enforced?
For the past two years there's been a big production made of the Trump Administration’s year-end Status Report on the “one-in, two-out” regulatory reduction program. These…
Forbes
What is the Cost of the Permanent Federal Regulatory Bureaucracy?
It is well known that businesses constantly seek favors from government. The phenomenon is called "rent-seeking" by economists, and it gets lots of attention. Elon Musk of…
Blog
Unknown Societal Costs of Imposing Regulation Based on Secret (or Creatively Leveraged) Data
From the food pyramid and dietary guidelines, to vaping policies, to the Progressive zeal for eugenics, humility-challenged administrative experts can be mistaken, can mislead, or…
Blog
Where Facebook Interim Report on Bias Falls Short
Today former U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), in fulfillment of an arrangement with Facebook, released an independent Interim Report (and accompanying op-ed) cataloging the primary concerns of…
News Release
Facebook Report on Bias Overlooks Looming Threats of Speech Regulation
Facebook today released an interim report by former U.S. Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) examining claims by some conservatives of political bias on the part of…
Blog
Cataloging Regulatory Costs of Cronyism and Rent-Seeking in a Self-Interested Administrative State
Rent-seeking as a policy concern has been done to death: It’s been described over and over how regulation is often not about elevating the public…
Reason
Democrats Join Trump in Seeking Balance by Policing Speech
Reason cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on free speech and Section 230: Removing Section 230 protection from platforms that bureaucrats consider…
News Release
Draft White House Executive Order Aimed at Social Media Companies Would Violate First Amendment
Following yesterday’s Politico report about a draft executive order aimed at social media companies’ policies, CNN obtained a copy of the proposed order on Friday.
Forbes
Will the Regulatory Right-to-Know Act Ever Be Enforced?
For the past two years there's been a big production made of the Trump Administration’s year-end Status Report on the “one-in, two-out” regulatory reduction program. These…
Blog
Is White House ‘Guidance on Compliance with the Congressional Review Act’ Restraining Agency Rulemaking?
At a time of trillion dollar runaway peacetime deficits, big-spenders can take smug comfort knowing that regulation is even less disciplined, especially where ostensibly sub-regulatory…
National Review
The Trump Economy
The National Review cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on the 10kc report. As Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Blog
Costs of Deadweight Effects of Federal Spending and of ‘Budget’ or ‘Transfer’ Rules
Theoretically, policymakers distinguish between economic and social regulation when examining and reporting on costs, effects, and employment.
News Release
Sen. Hawley’s Section 230 Legislation is Highly Regulatory and Should be Rejected
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) today introduced legislation that would end Section 230 protections for large technology and social media platforms.
Reason
Will Trump’s Authoritarian Impulses Derail His Deregulatory Successes?
Reason cites Vice President of Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on CEI’s “Ten Thousand Commandments” report. But there are warning signs that…
The Washington Times
Trump ‘Administrative State’ Rollback Fails To Lower $2 Trillion Annual Cost Of Regulation
The Washington Times cites Vice President of Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on the cost of federal regulations. Federal regulations were costing…
Fox Business
Trump Early Efforts on Deregulation Could Pave Way For Increased Executive Activity: Study
Fox Business cites Vice President of Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on the Trump Administration’s record on deregulation. While he…
The Washington Examiner
‘Swamp’ Thwarts Trump With $1.9T ‘Hidden Tax’ In Regulations
The Washington Examiner cites Vice President of Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on CEI’s “Ten Thousand Commandments” report. The Competitive Enterprise Institute said…
Blog
Regulations Trump Administration Has Eliminated So Far in 2019
The Trump administration promised to roll back red tape. So how goes 2019? The 2019 Spring Unified Agenda of Deregulatory and Regulatory Actions released by the…
The Hill
Co-Founder’s Call to Break Up Facebook Energizes Its Critics
The Hill cites Vice President of Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on the possible regulation of Facebook. Wayne Crews, the vice president…
The Washington Times
Burdensome Federal Regulations Are ‘Hidden Tax’ Which Cost $1.9 Trillion: Study
The Washington Times cites Vice President for Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on CEI’s “Ten Thousand Commandments” report. The national debt is not the…
News Release
Antitrust Action Will Sacrifice 2 Years of Trump Deregulatory Gains, Harm Consumers
Today, House Democrats launched antitrust investigations into prominent technology companies, including Facebook, Google and potentially others.
Blog
Will Antitrust End Trump’s Deregulatory Push?
Revelations that antitrust enforcers have conspired to divide jurisdiction and initiate antitrust investigations into Google and Apple (the U.S. Department of Justice) and Amazon and…
Forbes
Trump’s Regulatory Reform Agenda by the Numbers (Summer 2019 Update)
The Trump administration released the Spring 2019 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Daily Caller
Conservatives Wrestle over How to Wallop Big Tech as Facebook Conducts Major Content Purge
The Daily Caller cites Vice President for Policy and Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on antitrust regulations. “It’s not a civil rights issue at the…
Blog
Regulatory Costs of Anti-Property Approaches to Environmental Concerns
Environmental regulations transfer substantial wealth and can be subject to the same political failure and regulatory pork-barreling that characterize economic regulation—perhaps more so, given the…
Blog
Costs of Loss of Anonymity in Administrative Surveillance State
The ability of citizens to communicate privately and to retain anonymity if desired are foundational rights slipping away in the regulatory panopticon of the administrative…
Blog
Regulatory Costs of Blurring Corporate and Government Roles
In keeping with the tradition of ignoring political failure in service of the administrative state, the economic and social effects of GSEs, or government-sponsored enterprises,…
Blog
Costs of Antitrust Regulation and Institutionalization of Raising Competitors’ Costs
Antitrust policy is corporate welfare, a prominent illustration of how regulation, not just spending, enables and encourages transfers of wealth by force.
Citation
Government Regulation of Speech Will Not Protect Conservatives
Yesterday, the White House launched a landing page (http://wh.gov/techbias) claiming social media platforms “should advance freedom of speech” and asking Americans who believe that their…
Forbes
What If the Administrative State Cannot Be Reformed?
For the past couple of years I’ve been emphasizing the usefulness of an executive order from President Donald Trump on regulatory "guidance documents" to bridge the gap…
National Review
President Trump Should Rediscover Regulatory Reform
President Trump, who made regulatory reform a priority early in his term, claims to have reduced federal regulatory burdens by $23 billion in fiscal year…
News Release
Federal Government Illegally Fails to Account for at Least $1.9 Trillion in Estimated Regulatory Costs
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today released the 2019 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State (10KC 2019), CEI’s annual survey of…
News Release
Facebook’s Calls for Government Regulation of Speech Provide Important Context for Recent Actions
Facebook announced yesterday it was banning several individuals under a policy it has against “dangerous individuals and organizations.” Individuals banned include: InfoWars founder Alex Jones,…
Study
Ten Thousand Commandments 2019
Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers,…
Blog
Costs of Unequal Treatment of Citizens by Abandoning Negative Rights for a Positive Rights Framework
To many classical liberals (or libertarians), it is primarily the individual’s right of self-defense that is delegated to a government. We cannot unilaterally commence the…
Forbes
Here are the Next Executive Orders President Trump Should Issue on Regulatory Reform
What's next for oversight and streamlining of federal regulations? On April 11, 2019, the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Acting Director Russell Vought issued…
News Release
DOJ Wrong to Intervene in Merger Between Sprint and T-Mobile
Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that antitrust enforcement staff at the Department of Justice have told T-Mobile and Sprint the proposed merger between the…
News Release
CEI Makes the Case against the Use of Antitrust Law
The Competitive Enterprise Institute today released a report making the case that government use of antitrust law to break up big companies has a chilling…
Study
The Case against Antitrust Law
Politicians and pundits across the ideological spectrum often call for greater competition in the marketplace. While their favored means vary widely, the view that current…
News Release
OMB Guidance on Major Rules & Regulatory Dark Matter is a Real Step Toward Stopping Regulatory Abuses
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) yesterday released new guidance re-asserting the requirement that agencies submit major notice-and-comment rules and certain major sub-regulatory guidance…
Blog
Facebook’s Call for Regulation Could Lead to Government Censorship
The Internet is unique in history not because it lacked “rules” about free expression, but that it expanded that broadcast freedom to all, not just…
Blog
Regulation and Neglected Costs of Authoritarianism and Over-Criminalization
Corrupt government and authoritarianism have been the historical rule rather than the exception. The U.S. Constitution’s elevation of individual rights and restraints on governmental power…
Blog
Regulatory Costs of Delegating Lawmaking Power to Executive and Unelected Administrators
The administrative state, blessed by Congress, has dispensed with the Founders’ system of legislation fashioned solely by an elected body. Regulatory reforms call for holding…
Forbes
Warning Signs: How Trump’s Ascendant Regulatory Impulses Could Swamp His Deregulatory Program
President Donald Trump has pruned rules and costs and held down regulatory output with more enthusiasm than other presidents. But on the flipside of Trump’s controversial regulatory savings, Trump sports regulatory…
Blog
The Regulatory Costs of Abandoned Federalism
The deterioration of the principle of separation of powers is a signature feature of the powerful federal Administrative State. This corrosion is accompanied by a…
The Hill
Congressional Review Act Rises Again!
The Hill cited Vice President for Policy and a Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on regulatory dark matter. This problem increases considerably when you…
The Cato Institute
Bloomberg Unwittingly Vindicates Stigler
The Cato Institute cited Vice President for Policy and a Senior Fellow Wayne Crews on the Trump administration and regulatory reform. Thankfully, we…
The Daily Signal
VIDEO: Hope for an Overregulated Nation
Senior Fellow Wayne Crews joined “The Bill Walton Show” on the Daily Signal to explain how to return the U.S. to the path of greater…
Blog
Costs of Regulatory Takings and Property Value Destruction
Takings issues noted here are just the beginning of government neglect of the institution of private property, notable especially in emergent sectors. But the disdain…
Blog
Regulatory Costs and the Loss of Liberty
From classical liberal and individual rights perspectives, the administrative state is an affront to liberty almost by definition.
Blog
Unmeasured Meta-Costs of the Administrative State
In my recent Forbes column “Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State,” I discuss some of the…
Blog
Administrative Procedure Act Limitations: Process and Oversight Shortcomings
The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA) set up the foundation of the public consultation rulemaking procedure. Part one of this two-part glance at APA…
Fox Business
Trump’s State of the Union Address in Five Words
He need only focus on five words to convey his vision: less regulation and less dependency in America.
Blog
A Brief Outline of Undisclosed Costs of Regulation
In my recent Forbes column “Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State,” I discussed checks on the…
Forbes
Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State
Bloated by Congress’s delegation of most lawmaking, the Administrative State sits in America’s middle seat with its elbows out.
Blog
Administrative Procedure Act Limitations: Cost Measurement and Disclosure
U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III noted in a 2017 journal article that regulation sometimes contains “too much detail,” changes too “frequently and capriciously,” creates backlogs and…
Blog
What If Trump’s Regulations Exceed His Regulatory Rollback Savings?
President Donald Trump has pruned rules and costs at a quicker pace than other presidents. But could his other policies torpedo that?…
Forbes
If the Government Shutdown Falls Short of Armageddon, We Should Rethink the Other 75 Percent Too
If the longest-ever partial (25%) federal government shutdown persists, might Americans catch on that not everything the federal government does and regulates should remain national…
Forbes
Working Together, We Can Keep Country People off the Internet (Just Kidding; Jumpstart 5G This Way)
A buddy of mine living in Charlottesville was wishing for more subsidized rail to travel to Washington. I told him it was cheaper for me…