Trump’s Regulatory ‘Impulses’ Threaten Victories Over Swamp
The Washington Examiner cites Competitive Enterprise Institute Vice President Clyde Wayne Crews regarding regulation in the Trump administration.
President Trump has continued his unprecedented rollback of federal regulations, making good on a key 2016 campaign promise. But his own regulatory “impulses” threaten to give Washington’s “swamp” new powers, including targeting conservatives, according to a top expert on the administrative state.
On the one hand, Trump has cut regulations, rules, and even pages in the Federal Register to historic lows. He’s easily matched his pledge to kill two old regulations for every new one. Last year, he slashed more than four for every new one, far from his record of 17-1.
And, said Competitive Enterprise Institute Vice President Clyde Wayne Crews, Trump’s orders on trade, healthcare, social media, federal lands, and artificial intelligence threaten his record regulatory cutting and could hand any subsequent Democratic president the keys to opening a treasure chest of crushing new rules.
“I don’t want to say ‘won,’” Crews said of Trump’s actions so far. “Trump did about the best he could.”
“But, unfortunately, in pushing these other programs, he is enabling a future victory of the swamp that eclipses what he achieved in the regulatory rollback. I want to get the message out that he needs to wake up to and prevent. His own expansion of the administrative state overwhelms his own reduction of it. And those reductions were unprecedented. Why wreck them?” he added.