After Iran, Trump Needs To Bomb The Administrative State Into Submission

Issues and Insights cites CEI’s Clyde Wayne Crews on the release of his new report, the 2026 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments.

“The regulatory tax of $2.153 trillion rivals individual income taxes of $2.426 trillion for 2024 and stands at over four times corporate income tax collections of $530 billion,” notes author Clyde Wayne Crews.

Put another way, the cost of U.S. regulations is higher than the entire GDP of each of the 10 biggest countries in the world.

A cut of $15 billion a year amounts to a tiny 0.7% reduction in the federal government’s regulatory burden.

And, as Crews notes, Trump has offset at least some of those savings with tariffs and other actions that raise the cost of doing business. Plus, as it stands, the next president can quickly undo everything Trump has achieved, just as Joe Biden did after Trump’s first term.

If Trump really wants to liberate the U.S. economy, he’s going to have to do a lot more than a few flesh wounds in the regulatory Leviathan.

Not only does he need to increase the pace of deregulatory actions, he must get Congress to act so that Washington can never again exert so much control over the everyday lives of Americans.

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