One of the most powerful accomplishments of Donald Trump’s presidency has been his deregulation agenda.
On the campaign trail, he stated that he would eliminate two regulations for every new one. According to Legal Insurrection, “the Trump administration is far exceeding that goal, eliminating 13 regulations for every new one.”
Russ Vought, the acting budget office director, told a Heritage Foundation conference on federalism that “We’ve hit 13 to 1.” In doing so, taxpayers have saved $33 billion.
According to federal reports, substantial deregulation has taken place at the departments of Labor, Education, Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, claims that President Trump’s experience as a businessman has helped shape his deregulatory agenda.
The former member of the House said “It is the best kind because it is real and it’s born of real world experience.”
Mulvaney added, “The president has it because he had to go and pull a permit to build a building and deal with bureaucracy and doesn’t like that and knows why that impedes growth and impedes development, impedes creativity.” Trump’s accomplishments on the deregulation front should be lauded, but he must not stop there.
According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “The estimate for regulatory compliance and economic effects of federal intervention is $1.9 trillion annually for purposes of comparison with federal spending and other economic metrics.”There exist other hidden costs which include manhours wasted trying to comply with these ordinances. This time would otherwise be used to build businesses or focus on other productive activities.
For that reason, President Trump should continue doubling down on deregulation and even start defunding bureaucracies so that they possess even less resources to enforce bureaucratic mandates when no one is looking.
Trump should not fall into the typical conservative habit of becoming complacent with the status quo. If re-elected, Trump should make it a hallmark of his second term to follow through with more deregulation and effectively gut the administrative state. In doing so, he will unleash an unprecedented degree of economic growth.
