by Robert Carbery
President Trump is at least changing one thing in Washington DC. He is rolling back the regulatory state that has grown and grown over the eight years of the Obama administration. And this is indeed making America great again. Make no mistake.
The Trump administration has claimed that it shelved 860 federal regulations its first six months in office, slowing new rules and finally reducing the government’s role in the economy.
A new report released Thursday morning detailed how the administration has reduced economically reductive regulations by half, dropping by 40 percent other rules that would have had a significant impact. While President Obama imposed regulations to the tune of $6.8 billion in costs to businesses during just the last five months in office, Trump’s White House has reduced costs dramatically imposed by idiotic, redundant, and unnecessary government rules hampering business creation during his barely six months at the helm.
We are not reducing safety. We are increasing the capacity for businesses to start and multiplying the capacity for more people to be employed. Under Trump’s deregulatory moves over the past few months, some 79 percent of regulations were intended to improve safety, according to Bloomberg. But are they really doing what they are intended to do? Or are they making it damn near impossible to start a business in these regulated and far from united states of America, therefore making it easy for big businesses to survive while never giving the little guy a chance?
Neomi Rao, the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) administrator of Information and Regulatory Affairs stated that Trump’s effort is “reducing the overall regulatory burden on the American people.” She continued in a statement, saying, “It fulfills longstanding principles to review and revise existing regulations to eliminate regulations that are ineffective, duplicative, and obsolete.” The deregulatory agenda Trump has been implementing so far has offered a rare opportunity to make a real and direct impact on policy.
Ever since Trump has been in office, he has put an emphasis on business creation and deregulation. It’s about time our president put jobs before virtue signaling.
For every new regulation the government proposes, the Feds must “identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed,” President Trump declared just 10 days after his inauguration. Then in April, he doubled down, stating that “we are absolutely destroying these horrible regulations that have been placed on your heads over not eight years, over the last 20 and 25 years,” emphasizing the clearing of red tape discouraging lending to businesses, real estate developers, and energy firms, the crux of our economic growth.
If big banks and big business benefits from these actions, so be it. It’ll be worth it in the end to see a flurry of small businesses created due to the removal of red tape implemented over the previous decades as so many entrepreneurs are deterred from making their dreams come true to avoid having to deal with the overbearing government regulations that come with trying to start a business.
Complying with regulations costs businesses on average $8,086 per employee, according to the Small Business Association as of 2008. This shit ain’t cheap! And we can only assume that that number increased over the overbearing Obama years. Businesses with less than 20 employees took the biggest hit at $10,585/employee versus $7,454/employee for companies with 20 to 499 workers, and only $7,755/employee for large corporations over 500 employees.
It’s even worse in manufacturing: $28,316 per employee for small businesses, $13, 504 for medium sized companies, and only $12,586 for larger firms. How does this help the little guy, Democrats? How does this make the American dream come true for those that want to pursue it? Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.
Federal agencies are expected to complete 1,732 regulations this year, a 20 percent drop year-over-year. President Trump’s moves have angered environmentalists, labor unions, and consumer watchdogs, so he is surely doing something right. Lawsuits are to follow that will errantly claim that this favors corporations and Wall Street and cripples the consumer and the employee, but they fail to see the reality that will come to fruition as a result of this deregulation. There will be more small businesses. And more people employed! Regulations crush business creation and do not “help” the American consumer or taxpayer. They mostly hinder economic growth and the leftist mainstream media will never admit this truth.
Trump is following through on another of his campaign promises. Last October, Trump said, “I would say 70 percent of regulations can go. It’s just stopping businesses from growing.” I would say he is quite correct. Triple down, Mr. President!
Let’s look at the following deregulatory actions taken by the Trump administration since Inauguration Day intended to spur business creation and economic growth while putting the Obama regulatory state in the rear mirror:
- Two-for-one: Trump declared that the federal government must junk two regulations for every single new one it imposes.
- Gas pipelines: Trump delivered on one of the highest-profile regulatory bottlenecks under Obama, approving construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access natural-gas pipelines in the Great Plains, over environmentalists’ objections.
- Coal power: Trump overturned Obamer’s Clean Power Plan to curb carbon-dioxide emissions by coal-burning utilities, also rolling back the moratorium on leasing federal lands for coal production.
- Net neutrality: In April, Trump’s appointment to head the FCC, Ajit Pai, vowed to reopen the Internet to competition that was thwarted under the Obama administration’s net-neutrality regulations.
- Calorie counting: In May, the FDA delayed a rule, prized by Michelle O., that would require restaurant chains to do extensive posting of the number of calories in their menu items.
- Methane pollution: In May, the EPA halted an Obama administration rule to cut down on pollution by methane, which had been criticized by the oil and gas industry.
- Alaskan reserve: In May, the Interior Department reopened Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas drilling, reversing another of the Obama administration’s moronic 2013 shutdown.
- Climate change: In June, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the destructive Paris accord because it imposed unfair environmental standards on American businesses and workers and not everyone else.
- Joint employment: In June, the Labor Department withdrew its previous guidance on “joint employment” and independent contractors, moving away from another outdated and unintelligible Obama administration standard.
- For-profit colleges: In June, the Education Department pulled back the Obama administration’s rules for “gainful employment” and “borrower defense,” which many at for-profit colleges said were aimed at destroying their industry.
- Protecting water: In June, the EPA began moving ahead with plans to dismantle the Obama rule that sought to protect clean drinking water by expanding the federal government’s power to regulate small streams, wetlands and other tiny bodies of water in addition to major rivers and lakes. The “Waters of the United States Rule” was a major bane to businesses such as agriculture and needed to be done away with.
- Speedier drugs: This month, the new leadership of the FDA “may be pursuing its goal of speeding drug development by easing up on its requirements,” the Wall Street Journal reported in the wake of the agency’s approval to permit Amicus Therapeutics to submit an experimental drug for approval without running an additional clinical study that the FDA previously demanded.
- Tax inversion: Earlier this month, the Treasury Department announced plans to alter the Obama administration’s rule against corporate acquisitions made for the purpose of cross-border tax avoidance, or “tax inversions,” which many big companies have executed over the last several years to avoid high U.S. corporate-tax rates.
- Consumer rules: Within the past two weeks, the Consumer Product Safety Commission asked the public to suggest ways the agency could reduce the burdens and costs of its existing rules, regulations and practices without harming consumers.
Business owners are applauding Trump’s efforts to remove red tape aimed at spurring economic growth. This is not heartless. This is not making us all less safe. This is common sense deregulation and is the most impact Trump has had in Washington so far.
Deal with it.