Op-Eds
Trump White House Quietly Releases Overdue Regulatory Cost-Benefit Reports
The long-standing presumption that national top-down regulation of the economy from Washington brings substantial net benefits dominates public policy. But how much timely review of federal…
Forbes
Trump’ Year In Regulation, 2019
Today, Tuesday, December 31, 2019, is the last federal workday of the year. This presents an opportunity to review the heft of the Federal Register and its…
Forbes
The 2020 Unconstitutionality Index: 28 Federal Rules And Regulations For Every Law Congress Passes
Even in a presidential administration bent on cutting regulation (see my 2019 overview), the number of rules from hundreds of federal agencies …
Forbes
How Regulation of “Harmful Speech” Online Will Do the Real Harm
Much of the debate over online speech concerns whether or not conservatives are “censored” by big tech. But there are bigger fish to fry.
The Wall Street Journal
A Republican Proposal to Feed the Country to the Swamp
Progressives dream of making the District of Columbia into a state, but now a pair of Republican senators have the same vision reflected through a…
Forbes
Helicopter Government? How the Internet of Things Enables Pushbutton Regulation from a Distance
Artificial intelligence can be curiously stupid. My Android phone still thinks I’m “wing Cruz” and doesn’t know my kids. Pandora overplays The Church and Deadmau5…
Forbes
Will the Regulatory Right-to-Know Act Ever Be Enforced?
For the past two years there's been a big production made of the Trump Administration’s year-end Status Report on the “one-in, two-out” regulatory reduction program. These…
Forbes
What is the Cost of the Permanent Federal Regulatory Bureaucracy?
It is well known that businesses constantly seek favors from government. The phenomenon is called "rent-seeking" by economists, and it gets lots of attention. Elon Musk of…
Forbes
Will the Regulatory Right-to-Know Act Ever Be Enforced?
For the past two years there's been a big production made of the Trump Administration’s year-end Status Report on the “one-in, two-out” regulatory reduction program. These…
Forbes
Trump’s Regulatory Reform Agenda by the Numbers (Summer 2019 Update)
The Trump administration released the Spring 2019 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Forbes
What If the Administrative State Cannot Be Reformed?
For the past couple of years I’ve been emphasizing the usefulness of an executive order from President Donald Trump on regulatory "guidance documents" to bridge the gap…
National Review
President Trump Should Rediscover Regulatory Reform
President Trump, who made regulatory reform a priority early in his term, claims to have reduced federal regulatory burdens by $23 billion in fiscal year…
Forbes
Here are the Next Executive Orders President Trump Should Issue on Regulatory Reform
What's next for oversight and streamlining of federal regulations? On April 11, 2019, the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Acting Director Russell Vought issued…
Forbes
Warning Signs: How Trump’s Ascendant Regulatory Impulses Could Swamp His Deregulatory Program
President Donald Trump has pruned rules and costs and held down regulatory output with more enthusiasm than other presidents. But on the flipside of Trump’s controversial regulatory savings, Trump sports regulatory…
Fox Business
Trump’s State of the Union Address in Five Words
He need only focus on five words to convey his vision: less regulation and less dependency in America.
Forbes
Rule of Flaw and the Costs of Coercion: Charting Undisclosed Burdens of the Administrative State
Bloated by Congress’s delegation of most lawmaking, the Administrative State sits in America’s middle seat with its elbows out.
Forbes
If the Government Shutdown Falls Short of Armageddon, We Should Rethink the Other 75 Percent Too
If the longest-ever partial (25%) federal government shutdown persists, might Americans catch on that not everything the federal government does and regulates should remain national…
Forbes
Working Together, We Can Keep Country People off the Internet (Just Kidding; Jumpstart 5G This Way)
A buddy of mine living in Charlottesville was wishing for more subsidized rail to travel to Washington. I told him it was cheaper for me…
The Hill
How to Rein in Regulatory Dark Matter
Divisive hot-button issues are distracting public attention from policy reforms that could make everyone better off by expanding the economy. One of these is regulatory…
Forbes
Here’s a Year-End Roundup of White House and Federal Agency Efforts to Streamline Guidance Documents
President Donald Trump’s executive actions aimed at slowing the pace of new regulation and eliminating existing ones (the first part was easier) continued in 2018.
Forbes
Lame Duck Update: Here’s How the 115th Congress Tried to Streamline Agency Guidance Documents
Despite surprisingly deep bipartisan pedigree of significant regulatory reforms and proposals of the past, few Democrats in the 115th Congress were inclined to work with Republicans and President Trump…
Forbes
The Midterm Election Results Should Inspire A New Trump Executive Order On Federal Regulations
As part of its economic reform agenda, the Trump administration emphasized cutting red tape. It reaffirmed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) cost-benefit review of significant agency rules…
Forbes
Trump Exceeds One-In, Two-Out Goals on Cutting Regulations, But it May be Getting Tougher
The Trump administration has released the Fall 2018 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Forbes
The Rules for Rulemaking: a Cheat-Sheet Glossary of the Administrative State
The following chronological overview of America's regulatory oversight regime emerged from noticing the many categories of rules and regulations in play in the insiders' game…
Forbes
A Trump Executive Order on Regulatory Guidance Documents Can Pick up the Ball Congress Dropped
Reform of so-called guidance documents or policy statements seeped into the broader regulatory reform debate in a number of ways, such as their incorporation into…
Op-Eds
The Costs Of Federal Agency Expertise
Whether the matter at hand is health, safety, economic or technology policy regulation, federal intervention is legitimized on the basis of presumed impartial expertise of…
Forbes
What Is The Effect Of Federal Regulation On Jobs?
A time of record employment is a perfect opportunity to reflect upon the conditions that enable it (suspicion of official employment statistics notwithstanding). How do you keep letting…
Forbes
Are Entrepreneurs Creating the Growing Economy, or is the Growing Economy Enabling Entrepreneurs?
It is taken as given that taxation and regulation affect business startups and job creation. However, the many metrics seeking to explain governmental policies' effects…
Op-Eds
Are Entrepreneurs Creating The Growing Economy, Or Is The Growing Economy Enabling Entrepreneurs?
It is taken as given that taxation and regulation affect business startups and job creation. However the many metrics seeking to explain governmental policies' effects on entrepreneurship probably…
Forbes
Trump’s 2018 Regulatory Reform Agenda by the Numbers
The Trump administration has released the new Spring 2018 edition of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Forbes
Should Congress be Repealing Agency Rules that are Already Invalid?
The Senate has voted to repeal a 2013 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regulatory guidance document that took the form of a “bulletin” on “Indirect…
Forbes
An Inventory of Federal Agency Guidance Documents
Is that an exciting click-bait title or what? It gets even better though. Federal regulations’ hundreds of billions in costs and burdens are a familiar…
Forbes
Networking and Automation are Upending the Scholarly Study of Entrepreneurship
The changing nature of work via the sharing economy, automation and networking is one among a profusion of variables (such as economic liberty) affecting modern…
Forbes
Born Or Made? Personal Characteristics that Influence Entrepreneurship
Regulation is one of the more important influences on entrepreneurship around the world, and modern scholars have explored what the see as key conceptual and…
Forbes
Americans Celebrate July 4th — But Can They Celebrate Independence?
News reports on Fourth of July polling pointedly distinguish between “proud to be an American” and “proud of America now,” in a way less apparent…
Forbes
What do Scholars Say About the Empirical Relationships Between Regulation and Entrepreneurship?
In the Fraser Institute’s new volume Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the Effects of an Aging Population, chapter authors observe that the more red tape and…
Forbes
What Do Scholars Say About The Conceptual Relationship Between Regulation And Entrepreneurship?
We know that “Institutions Matter” when it comes to governance and prosperity. They have to, because the phrase returns over 200,000 Google search results.
Forbes
Pinpointing The Role Of Economic Liberty In Inspiring Global Entrepreneurship
It is hard to start a business that works. Most people do not attempt it. The reasons are complex, but the World Bank’s Doing Business…
Forbes
Trump’s Executive Branch Restructuring: What If The Federal Government Is Beyond Streamlining?
Can the federal government shrink? Or is the situation like the waistlines that paradoxically parallel the growth of the diet and fitness industry?…
Forbes
What Key Factors Influence Entrepreneurship and Business Growth? Ideas for Researchers
If getting things done requires too many steps, there will be fewer entrepreneurs. That seems to be something of a consensus in the economics and social…
Forbes
Universal Basic Income: What’s The Plural Of Apocalypse?
Is homo sapiens, in the final analysis, a being incapable of living unless supported by a universal basic income (UBI)? One of the mounting threats…
Forbes
What the AT&T-Time Warner Merger Decision Means for U.S. Regulation
President Donald Trump's moves to streamline federal regulation and unleash infrastructure have in some ways been unprecedented. But some developments could undermine or swamp the…
Forbes
Louder Applause + Less Regulation = Greater Entrepreneurship
Unleashing entrepreneurship is a global imperative, evidenced by worldwide governmental passion for classifying and measuring entrepreneurship, such as the World Bank's Doing Businessreport series, and by…
Op-Eds
Do-er/Thinker Alliances: How Capitalists Can Defend Capitalism
The Fraser Institute of Canada just released a new book called Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the Effects of an Aging Population. The book contains a series of 10…
Op-Eds
Next-Level Prosperity: Explaining And Reversing Declining Entrepreneurship Rates
One of the consequences of aging populations in the West that may sometimes not be fully incorporated into public policy is that the pool of folks inclined…
Forbes
Social Media Filtering Is Not Censorship
Governments can censor. And in a convoluted way, that's what social media regulation would do.
USA Today
Trump is Cutting Through Regulations, but Only Congress Can Make it Last
Eventually, politicians will be forced to get spending and deficits under control, but regulatory reforms are just as important to keep the economy growing and…
Op-Eds
The Six Ways Trump Has Cut Red Tape (So Far)
Alongside tax reform, cutting red tape has been big news. Congress created the regulatory enterprise and enabled the now-sweeping delegation of legislative power to administrative agencies…
Forbes
Mark Zuckerberg Testimony: Will Washington Cast The First Stone At Facebook?
As Facebook is embroiled in three separate privacy crises, let he who never transacts commercially or politically cast the first stone.
Forbes
Trump Administration Releases Updated Regulatory Cost-Benefit Report
Benefits of federal regulation are supposed to exceed costs. How much review of federal regulation happens to assure that’s the case? The annual (sort of) Report…
Newsmax
Year Two: 10 Things Trump Must Do to Finish Draining the Swamp
President Trump has not drained the swamp yet – but at least it is getting smaller.
Forbes
Most Federal Agency Regulatory Guidance May Be Invalid, So Now What?
Forbes published an article by Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr. about the lack of firm rules beign established by federal agencies in stead copius “interpretive guidance”…
Real Clear Markets
What’s the Difference between “Major,” “Significant,” and All Those Other Federal Rule Categories?
RealClear Markets posted an article written by Clyde Wayne Crews about emergence and ensuing pervasiveness which the nomenclature of department rule-creation holds within the U.S. federal government, as…
Forbes
State of the Union Address in Five Words, Trump vs Obama
The occasion of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address marks a time of considerable optimism flowing from the prospects of more jobs, smaller government,…
Forbes
A CES Takeaway: Don’t Fear Robots and Artificial Intelligence, Fear Politicians
Maroon 5 keeps popping up on my Pandora stations, so artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning still have a ways to go. Even if AI…
Forbes
Net Neutrality and Senate Democrats’ Renewed Love for the Congressional Review Act
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is the law by which the Republican Congress and the Trump Administration eliminated 14 of…
Forbes
Who Will Own the Infrastructure in the Smart City?
There is great enthusiasm for the smart city concept. Integration of autonomous vehicles, drones and networked communications are expected to manage congestion, lead to fewer…
Forbes
The Consumer Electronics Show and Public Policy: Can There Be Separation of Tech and State?
The buzz and pre-show anticipation have begun for the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show(#CES2018) hosted by CTA, the …
Forbes
Warning Signs: Will Federal Agencies Derail Trump’s 2-for 1 Deregulatory Agenda?
In mid-December, the Trump administration touted success exceeding its one-in, two-out regulatory goals for managing on-the-books regulations, achieving instead a one-in, 22-out ratio. These goals had…
Forbes
Trump’s New 2018 Deregulatory Agenda
Just in time for Christmas, the Trump administration released the Fall 2018 edition of the twice-yearly Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda…
InsideSources
Counterpoint: One Year Post-Election: Grate Again, Great Again
It’s now one year since the election of Donald J. Trump as our nation’s president. Is America “great again”? The election certainly did make America…
Forbes
The Significance of Sen. Al Franken’s Call to Impose Net Neutrality on Google, Facebook and Amazon
Antitrust and technology market regulatory interventions are staging a comeback, even in the era of President Donald Trump’s push for broad…
Forbes
The Internet of Things Wants to Know Where Its 5G Is
A major pledge of the Trump Administration was cutting red tape and boosting America’s infrastructure. Ten months in, there are lots of moving parts to…
Forbes
What Has To Happen For Trump’s Federal Regulatory Budget To Work
Congress is moving forward on the 2018 federal Budget Resolution, and maybe the promised tax system overhaul. Of course, the $4 trillion a year the…
Forbes
Donald Trump’s Regulatory Reform Could Be Derailed by Administrative State Jargon
The federal administrative state hummed along for years, relatively unperturbed until Donald Trump implemented a freeze on new costs in January. In the background, though,…
The Washington Times
Banishing Regulatory ‘Dark Matter’
Turns out there aren’t just too many regulations, but too many different kinds of them to track. Congress has stalled out on passing regulatory reform…
Forbes
The Case for Trump’s Tax Plan Is Strengthened By IRS’s $300 Billion Compliance And Deadweight Burden
Donald Trump made his most urgent appeal for middle class tax cuts in North Dakota, the home state of Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat who…
Forbes
Trump’s Tax Reform Plan Targets Middle-Class Tax Complexity
President Trump visited Missouri to talk about tax reform, stressing simplicity and middle-class tax relief and “plans to bring back Main Street by reducing…
Forbes
How Many Rules And Regulations Do Federal Agencies Issue?
With Congress on summer vacation, it’s an appropriate time to reflect on the number of laws it passes vs. the number of rules and regulations…
Forbes
Warning: Federal Government Deems Fidget Spinners An “Emerging Hazard”
Don’t eat your fidget spinner. I guess that’s what the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is trying to tell us now.
Forbes
How Is Trump’s “One-In, Two-Out” Policy On Federal Regulations Going?
The Trump White House has just published the “Spring” 2017 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The Unified Agenda is the federal…
Forbes
Fixing A Washington That’s Gone From Rule Of Law, To Rule By Whatever
Astrophysicists have concluded that ordinary visible matter—the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the Milky Way, the multitudes of galaxies beyond our own, and their trillions…
Forbes
Net Neutrality Day Of Action Platitudes To Ensnare Corporate Proponents
Amazon, Google, Facebook and others in the tech world…you’re really going to keep poking on net neutrality? Some of you seem a tad less…
Forbes
Senator Elizabeth Warren Takes Swipe At Trump’s New Regulatory Overseer
Of the hundreds of federal agencies issuing thousands of rules each year, there is one small body, of a few dozen employees, within the…
Forbes
How Many Federal Agencies Exist? We Can’t Drain The Swamp Until We Know
As the federal bureaucracy has expanded, has America become “One Nation, Ungovernable”? No one can even say with certainty anymore how many federal agencies exist;…
Forbes
Trump’s New Executive Branch Reorganization Should Discipline Agency Guidance Documents
President Donald Trump is undertaking a “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch.” (E.O. 13781) For the new executive branch reorganization to bear…
Forbes
Trump’s Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch About To Get Underway
The modern debate over the administrative state and regulation parallels skirmishes over spending, the deficit, the debt, and the debt ceiling. This week, first draft…
Forbes
The Technology And Telecommunications Sectors And Trump’s Crucial Second 100 Days
Is it possible to keep federal government regulators’ hands off the technology sector? We’re in the middle of president Donald Trump’s second “100 Days,” and…
Forbes
In Today’s World, Trump’s Balanced Budget Will Require Regulatory Reform
It seems every American president’s fiscal budget gets declared DOA. Presidents signal priorities to Congress, which subsequently goes and does at it chooses. Sen. Mitch…
Forbes
These Federal Aviation Administration Regulations Are Why We’re Not Going to Mars
During president Donald Trump’s discussion about drinking processed urine on the International Space Station with duration record-setter Peggy Whitson, the exchange turned to a…
Washington Times
Pulling the Administrative State off Autopilot
Reducing burdensome regulations could unleash the full potential of America This past weekend marked President Trump’s 100th day in office. While tax cuts and health…
Forbes
New Trump Executive Order Seeks To Boost Agriculture And Rural America
“My farmer died.” —Punchline to the old joke about why a USDA employee is weeping at his desk The ratio of number of farmers…
Forbes
New Trump Executive Orders Spotlight Interior And Education ‘Regulatory Dark Matter’
Executive orders and proclamations expanding the scope of Washington over the nation’s business characterized much of the Barack Obama presidency. The former president himself–not just…
Forbes
The March For Science Should Demand Separation of Science And State
My second youngest son wanted to head downtown to D.C. for the March for Science. I had to explain to him that’s not quite…
Forbes
The Only Way Trump’s Washington Can Be Smaller In Four Years
There are now several moving and overlapping parts to President Donald Trump’s streamlining, swamp-draining, “deconstruction of the administrative state” agenda. Last week brought Office…
Fortune
Regulations Cost U.S. Business More Than Canada’s GDP
President Donald Trump’s administration has been busy issuing a flurry of executive orders intended to reduce regulatory burdens on businesses that keep them from adding…
Forbes
Here’s What Donald Trump And Congress Should Do About Regulatory Dark Matter
It’s becoming too easy for federal agencies to steer private activity without issuing “real” regulations anymore. Instead, we get regulatory dark matter — particularly…
Forbes
Trump And The Federal Bureaucracy Just Collided — Here’s What Happens Next
Agencies’ rules and regulations surged during Barack Obama’s last year, helping create a Federal Register 20 percent larger than the prior record. Bureaus and…
Foundation for Economic Education
The Epic Failure of the Government Gas Can
Part of living on Earth is mowing its grass and performing outdoor chores. Last International Earth Day, while the Globe held hands and celebrated Gaia…
Forbes
Donald Trump’s 100 Day Executive Action Agenda
New presidents emphasize 100-day priorities, but president-elect Donald J. Trump likely has a 100-minute agenda. An early post-election action instructed transition managers to “develop…
Forbes
Obama’s Legacy: Here’s A Raft Of Executive Actions Trump May Target
It’s president Barack Obama’s last week. Is the American left ready to consider reining in executive power yet? Coming to terms with the bipartisan stake…
Forbes
A CES Takeaway: Don’t Fear Robots And Artificial Intelligence–Fear Politicians
Maroon 5 keeps popping up on my Pandora stations, so artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning still have a ways to go. Even if AI…
The Hill
New President, New (Anti-)Red Tape Agenda
Federal regulators issue thousands of regulations every year. Decrees range from the Environmental Protection Agency’s gargantuan Clean Power Plan and “Waters of the United States”…
Forbes
Obama White House Releases Final Cost Of Regulation Report
The day before Christmas Eve, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the 2016 Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits…
Forbes
Coal In The Stocking – Obama Regulatory Rulebook Breaks Record By 13,000 Pages
When I was a kid, Dad always told my sister and me that if Santa Claus caught us awake on Christmas Eve, he’d put pepper…
Brietbart
A Better ‘Pledge’: Congress Shall Make No Law
When I think of a “Pledge” I’m reminded of my fraternity days and being hazed and lightly humiliated. House Republicans are offering their “Pledge to…
Brietbart
The Paul Ryan Vice Presidential Choice And The Other National Debt
No matter Mitt Romney’s running-mate candiate selection, cable news saturation of America for a couple days would have been and will be inevitable. Especially when…
Forbes
Donald Trump Promises To Eliminate Two Regulations For Every One Enacted
President elect Donald Trump, in a new video covering the transition and policy for the first 100 days, promises to get rid of regulation on…
Forbes
Obama White House Releases Its Final Regulatory Agenda
The White House has published the Fall 2016 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. It’s appearing the weekend before Thanksgiving — yet…
Forbes
Obama’s Midnight Regulations To Get Increased Scrutiny From Congress And Trump
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) and other Republican leadership members just sent a letter to Obama administration regulatory agency heads telling them to…
