Can Trump Kill This $2.2 Trillion Regulatory Beast?

Issues and Insights quoted CEI’s Ten Thousand Commandments report

But that barely scratches the surface. Thursday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released its annual “10,000 Commandments” report, which tracks the regulatory Leviathan. CEI calculates that the annual cost of complying with federal regulations is now $2.155 trillion.

Let’s put that in some context.

  • That’s nearly four times what corporations pay in federal income taxes.
  • It’s the equivalent of a $16,061 hidden tax on every U.S. household, notes CEI. That’s more than the average household pays for food, or health care, or transportation, or clothes.
  • The Federal Register, where all federal rules and regulations are printed, now takes more than 106,000 pages to hold the 98 million words issued by unelected bureaucrats. 
  • If U.S. regulations were a country, it would be the world’s 8th-largest in the world — bigger than Canada.

“They believe that the rapid repeal of some rules — and the stop-work order on enforcing others — will quickly and permanently uproot a vast network of regulations that many see as a safety net, but that they view as a drag on industry,” the Times reports. “Experts say there has never been such an immediate and comprehensive strategy to so quickly erase or freeze this many rules that are woven throughout so many dimensions of the American economy and daily life.”

If Trump succeeds, the economic impact will be immediate and profound. Research by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis found that just freezing existing rules in place would boost economic growth, lower inflation, and cut the deficit over the next 10 years by more than $1 trillion.

“The potential economic and fiscal benefits (of rolling back regulations) are substantial,” the report notes.

But if Trump succeeds in pulling regulations out by their roots, it will be up to Congress to poison the soil so a future president can’t just replant them.

The 10,000 Commandments report includes a host of reforms that lawmakers need to pass to permanently dismantle the regulatory state.

These include:

  • Terminate departments, agencies, commissions, and programs that no longer serve a legitimate purpose so they can no longer issue regulations.
  • Require congressional approval for major rules.
  • Increase regulatory transparency to the public, such as with a regulatory “report card.” 
  • Put sunset dates on all new regulations.

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