On Friday, the media was clamoring about President Trump’s unfair treatment of them. However, this was not the important news story of the day. The important story was Donald Trump’s unprecedented step towards fulfilling his campaign promise of reducing the regulatory burden in this country.
Trump Signs Executive Order to Enforce His Regulatory Reform Agenda
On January 30, 2017, Trump signed an executive order dealing with regulatory reform. This executive order required federal agencies to eliminate two regulations for every new regulation that is introduced. On February 24, 2017, Trump doubled down with a new executive order that created a regulatory reform task force within each federal agency.
The task force consists of 1) the Regulatory Reform Officer, 2) the Regulatory Policy Officer, 3) a representative from the agency’s policy office, and 4) three senior agency officials. This task force is responsible for ensuring that each agency carries out regulatory reform within their agency.
The task force is expressly tasked with examining regulations that 1) eliminate jobs, or inhibit job creation, 2) are outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective, 3) impose costs that exceed benefits, 4) create serious inconsistencies, and 5) were created in response to executive orders that have been rescinded.
Presidential candidates who talk about regulatory reform is not new. Regulatory reform has been an issue that many presidential candidates have spoken about over the years. Trump’s executive orders on regulatory reform are not unusual. Obama signed an executive order that attempted to curb some of the abuses. Obama required federal agencies to do a retrospect review and eliminate outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome regulations. Obama’s regulatory reform eliminated 70 significant regulations during his last 5 years in office. While this is a good start, during those same 5 years, Obama’s federal agencies created over 17,000 new regulations.
A New Direction in Regulatory Reform
President Trump is clearly making a huge effort to turn the federal agencies 180 degrees. In the last 40 years, federal agencies have added almost 200,000 new regulations. The size of the federal agencies has ballooned. In order to justify their existence and increase their budgets, federal agencies need to increase their power and scope of their duties. The mindset of federal bureaucrats has been more regulations.
President Trump has decided that this is not a healthy mindset. He has decided that these federal agencies are too big for their britches. A reduction in the size of federal agencies is coming. If the federal bureaucrats have not figured it out yet, there is a new sheriff in town.
Trump is signaling that there is going to be a major shift in this country. He has appointed several cabinet secretaries who appear ready to trim the fat off their agency. These secretaries along with this new task force will go a long way to free up the United States economy. This should spur the job market and remove millions of government subsidies.
Further Steps of Needed Regulatory Reform
Trump is a business man who understands the consequences of an overreaching federal bureaucracy. What will happen when the next politician becomes president of the United States. If you think that the next democrat president is going to follow Trump’s executive orders to aggressively reduce the regulatory environment, I have a bridge to Hawaii I want to sell you. As soon as the next Democrat steps into office, they are going to reverse Trump’s executive orders and start expanding the president’s power once again.
That is why it is so important that Congress pass the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive in Need of Security Act). This Act requires that within 70 days of any federal agency approving a major rule, Congress must approve, or the act does not go into effect. By passing the REINS Act, Congress will greatly reduce the ability of future presidents to damage the American economy with onerous regulations.
However, the REINS Act is not enough. A law passed by this Congress can be reversed by a liberal controlled Congress. Remember, it was only a few years ago that Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Besides, why are we limiting returning power back to Congress for only the “major” rules? Regulations Violate the Checks and Balances of a Representative Republic. We the People need to be demanding No Regulation Without Representation. We need to insist that our elected representatives pass the Regulation Freedom Amendment. The federal agencies’ abuse of rule making power has made a Constitutional Amendment returning the law making power back to the people’s duly elected officials necessary.
The Real News that Affects You
Let the media reports on their perceived inequitable treatment to have unabated access to the president. This is a story that does not affect the lives of millions of Americans. It may be important to the media pundits but it is not important to We the People. The real news is that the federal government is about to lose a bunch of weight. Trump’s regulatory reform is the story that will have a major effect on the United States economy.
Agreed.