The Trump Trumpet III: Recapping the President’s Results Regarding Deregulation. The two previous posts of the Trump Trumpet focused on the American Economy and International Trade. This post will be on Deregulation.
Perspective
Overregulation is the “economic kudzu” that strangles and chokes American business growth, competitiveness, and productivity. A reasonable level of regulations is required but regulations must be simple to interpret and easy to implement. At present, that is not the case.
With each passing year, the legislation passed by the House and Senate has become increasingly lengthy. Here are just three examples:
1. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (often referred to as Obamacare) was signed into law in March 2010. The bill was 2,700 pages long. Regulations and rules related to this bill currently stand at 11,000 pages and counting.
2. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law in July 2010. The bill was 848 pages long. Regulations and rules related to this bill stand at almost 14,000 pages and counting.
3. The Sarbanes-Oxley Law was signed into law in July 2002. The original bill was 66 pages long.
As a result of its annual research, the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates that the cost of compliance with Federal regulations for business is about $1.9 trillion. That cost is passed through to consumers.
The President’s Deregulation Achievements
President Trump promised in his 2016 campaign that a continuing goal of his administration was to deregulate whenever possible and practical. This task is almost impossible to achieve because thousands of pages are added to the Federal Register each year. On top of this, the Federal Tax Code contains more than 70,000 pages.
His initial results in deregulation include the following:
1. Rolled back provisions of the Dodd-Frank Bill; these changes will reduce the compliance costs for small banks.
2. Repealed Net Neutrality.
3. Signed an Executive Order that required the elimination of two regulations for every new one established.
4. Signed an Executive Order to reduce bureaucratic red tape for the processing and approval of infrastructure projects.
5. Withdrew America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); the TPP is a paperwork exercise that added little or no value to America’s international trade with 12 other countries.
Deregulating and downsizing the Federal Government will be an ongoing program in President Trump’s next four years.
Links
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