Now, About Deregulation . . .

Capitol Matters cited CEI’s expert on regulatory disciplines

Wayne Crews, writing in Forbes in September:

In his first term, Donald Trump’s administration technically exceeded its “one-in, two-out” deregulatory goals, claiming net cost savings and regulatory reductions across several federal agencies despite deep resistance and limits inherent in the rulemaking process itself given the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) that governs the regulatory enterprise.

That success has since been reversed and more.

Earlier this year Trump pledged that if elected, he would do more than reverse the reversal by eliminating “a minimum of 10 old regulations for every one regulation.”

Crews looked at how such an effort might go (it’s well worth reading in full) and concludes:

The misbegotten fusions of spending and regulation and of business and government confound free enterprise and capitalism. Any modern free-enterprise-oriented reformer must confront the inertia of hundreds of billions of subsidies and grants-in-aid and the contracting, procurement and acquisitions state behemoth. Beneficiaries of all these like things just the way they are, no matter how much regulation it all spins off. Here’s hoping Trump and Musk, should they get the opportunity, can charter a permanent Office of No to make case against the Administrative State’s market failure premises, and move regulatory disciplines out of Washington and to states, localities, communities, and to the competive realm where the real expertise lies, not just in creating products and services but in developing discipline and appropriate risk management. That’s how to surpass 10-for-one.

Read more at Capitol Matters