Melinda Warren, director of the Weidenbaum Center Forum
Since his days on the campaign trail, President Trump has promised “very, very big cuts in regulation.” Last December, he took credit for success toward that goal, announcing that his agencies had removed 22 regulations for every new one issued during his first eight months in office.
Just last week, the administration published its latest “Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions,” which identifies four deregulatory initiatives for every new regulatory action expected over the next 12 months.
What resources is the president devoting to this deregulatory effort? Recognizing that removing or modifying regulations involves as much documentation and time as introducing new regulations, the president’s budgetcan provide insights. When he sent his proposed fiscal 2019 budgetto Congress in February, Trump promised to “continue to relentlessly target unnecessary regulations for elimination.”
Our new analysis drills down into the fiscal outlays and staffing of regulatory agencies to see what they reveal about the administration’s plans, and to examine trends in the “regulators’budget” over the last 60 years. It indicates that, overall, the president’s fiscal 2019 budget would maintain spending on regulatory agencies at 2018 levels and reduce the number of regulators only slightly, from 280,872 in 2018 to 280,268 in 2019.
Read the full piece in The Hill.
Comments and respectful dialogue are encouraged, but content will be moderated. Please, no personal attacks, obscenity or profanity, selling of commercial products, or endorsements of political candidates or positions. We reserve the right to remove any inappropriate comments. We also cannot address individual medical concerns or provide medical advice in this forum.