President Trump declared today that his war on Obama-era regulations has done more than his tax cuts have to fuel the booming economy.
In an interview with Geraldo Rivera, Trump boasted, “I will tell you, a big part of our recovery, bigger even than the tax cuts, were the regulation cuts.”
And he’s right, said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, which has advocated for tax cuts and regulatory reform. He told Secrets: “Trump is correct that his deregulation policy has driven jobs, growth, and new investment. He joined Ronald Reagan in understanding the power of deregulation in helping create new opportunities for all Americans.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to cut two Obama-era regulations for every new one he proposed.
In fact, the administration has done far better than that goal. The latest Competitive Enterprise Institute audit of regulations found that the administration has cut far more than two for every new one.
What’s more, CEI’s Clyde Wayne Crews reported that the administration issued the fewest new rules since the government began counting them in 1975.
“It is a notable achievement that all three of the lowest-ever annual rule counts belong to Trump. This an even more significant development given that some of Trump’s ‘rules’ are rules written to get rid of or replace other rules,” Crews said, explaining that rules are “any federal agency action affecting the public, that’s not a law from Congress as it often should be.”
