Which wall?
The laws, rules, regulations, executive branch and federal agency proclamations and issuances, memos, guidance documents, bulletins, circulars, announcements with practical regulatory effect, “significant” agency guidance documents, and thousands of other such documents that are subject to little scrutiny or democratic accountability, and that have stifled entrepreneurship, jobs, the economy, and innovation.
That Wall. Tear it down, Mr. Trump. Please.
Of the 10 highest-ever Federal Register regulation page counts, Obama is responsible for seven. Obama keeps breaking his own record! 77,687 (2014); 78,961 (2012); 79,311 (2013); 80,260 (2015); 81,247 (2011); 81,405 (2010).; and 91,642 (2016). That’s an Atlas-back-breaking total of over 570,000 pages. There are some "fact checkers" who quibble about number of pages versus number of regulations, blah, blah. However, the point is this: Americans are being strangled by regulations.
This is what the Regulatory Wall looked like in 2013, before Obama "hit his stride."
It’s going to take a lot more than analyzing rules better and cutting a few. "A pruned weed is a healthy weed…..statutes should be revisited, and agencies downsized and eliminated."
"Overregulation did not begin in 2016. Trump should insist upon congressional affirmation of rules, guidance, and other agency proclamations likely to have significant economic impact, or that are otherwise controversial. He should support most recently passed regulatory reform bills, but go even further in telegraphing support for a congressional agenda to:
"Repeal or amend enabling statutes that sustain regulatory excesses (such as at the Departments of the Interior and Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency;
"Abolish, downsize, cut the budgets of, and deny appropriations to aggressive agencies, sub-agencies, and programs that routinely pursue regulatory actions not authorized by Congress;
"Eliminate and sunset rules; and
"Prevent agencies from creating new rules in areas where Congress has not explicitly authorized and distinctly voted to delegate legislative authority, especially in frontier sectors like Internet applications, drones, robotics, and artificial intelligence." First Steps for the Trump Administration: Rein in the Regulatory State.
Hopefully, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, tagged by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Environmental Protection Agency, will take some of these actions. He’s been very critical of the EPA’s insane overreach. Time will tell.
See:
Obama unleashes 3,853 regs, 18 for every law, record 97,110 pages of red tape
This letter offers a clue into how Trump could try to change American business
Mapping Washington’s Lawlessness: A Preliminary Inventory of “Regulatory Dark Matter”
90,000 Pages of Bureaucratic Hell.
Collins: Pruitt Will Roll Back EPA ‘Overreach’ Regulations
Free to Prosper: Regulatory Reform: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 115th Congress
The Unintended Consequences of Federal Regulatory Accumulation.