Ten Thousand Commandments and Growing

Over at The Washington Times, Wayne Crews and I praise President Obama’s recent regulatory reforms. They’re small, but they’re better than nothing:

The estimated savings total up to about $10 billion over five years. Cass Sunstein, who heads Mr. Obama’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, sees this as a significant achievement. Of course, federal regulations cost more than 500 times that much – more than a trillion dollars annually – so this is a curious use of the word “significant.”

We also lay out some potential next steps:

• Implement a bipartisan, annual Regulatory Reduction Commission to vote up or down on a package of rules to eliminate in one sweep.
• Institute a freeze on federal rule-making in order to rediscover federalism. Many health and safety matters are best left to states.
• Hold hearings on Sen. Mark R. Warner’s “one-in, one-out” requirement for any new rule, which, for some reason, he isn’t talking about much lately but should be.
• Increase exemptions for small businesses, which can least afford regulatory costs.

Read the whole thing here. More reform ideas are in the new 2012 edition of Wayne’s “Ten Thousand Commandments” study.