Myths About Trump: Significant Reduction in Regulations

One of my favorite myths about former President Donald Trump (R) is the notion that the Trump Administration significantly reduced Federal regulations (you can find an archive of the Trump White House bragging about this here).

The fact of the matter is that, at best, regulations were reduced by an insignificant amount; at worst, they increased under Trump. For those readers who may not know, under the Federal Government, there are three broad categories of laws:

·        Statutory Laws. These are the laws passed by Congress.

·        Administrative Laws. These are the “laws” created by administrative agencies (e.g., the State Department, the EPA, HUD, etc.), ostensibly  for the purpose of carrying out statutory laws, but quite often abused to the point that agencies use broad interpretations to impose their own laws on the American people.

·        Case Law. These are the interpretations of the various Federal courts in applying statutory and administrative laws to cases which come before them.

In the vernacular, “regulations” is shorthand for “administrative laws.” At a simple level, when an agency wishes to create a new regulation, they will publish the proposed text in the Federal Register, so that interested parties may comment on the proposal. Once the agency has considered all comments, they will again publish a final text in the Federal Register. Once the final text takes effect, it is incorporated into the Code of Federal Regulations (“C.F.R.”).

Thus, when objectively scrutinizing claims that Federal regulations have been reduced, it is necessary to review the C.F.R. to determine whether, as a body, it has increased or decreased. Due to its size and lack of demand, it is no longer published in physical volumes and the U.S. Government Publishing Office does not keep a tally of how many pages it would consume if the electronic version were on printed paper.

However, the Regulatory Studies Center at the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences does keep such a tally. According to them, in 2017 (Trump’s first year in office), the number of pages was 186,468. In 2020 (Trump’s last, full year in office), they were 186,069 – a net reduction of 0.21% (399 pages). To put this in perspective, regulations decreased during the first term of Bill Clinton (D) (1993 – 1996) by 0.09% (116 pages), a 0.12% difference (i.e., almost the same savings rate one would get at an average bank nowadays).

0.21% is not a significant reduction in regulations and this number can be misleading, because one of Trump’s key “deregulatory achievements” was Executive Order 13771, which required agencies to “identify” two existing regulations that can be repealed whenever a new, proposed regulation is made. However, some of the regulations which were repealed due to this Order were obsolete and had no impact on anyone whatsoever.

For example, in 2018, the FTC repealed the “Trade Regulation Rule Concerning the Deceptive Advertising as to Sizes of Viewable Pictures Shown by Television Receiving Sets” – a rule which was established in 1966 and was applicable only to tubed television sets, which the market discontinued supplying circa 2008. The repeal of such regulation would reduce the C.F.R. by the number of pages that the regulation consumed – but in reality, its repeal did nothing to lift the regulatory burden on the American people.

What basically happened during the Trump years is that Trump more or less kept the level of regulations at the same level as those at the end of the Obama years and, as noted above, his “deregulation” track record is on par with that of Bill Clinton’s first term (hardly the bastion of conservative values).  This, despite the fact that for half of Trump’s years, the Republicans enjoyed solid majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and conservatives had a solid majority in the Supreme Court for the full term.

If Republicans were actually serious about reducing regulations on the American people (and they are not, as the careful observer of the data supplied by the Regulatory Studies Center will note that regulations have had a net increase under every Republican administration), they would have done far more than what they did when they had the opportunity.

In 2024, Trump will be touting his “accomplishments” on this matter, by pointing to the reduction in the number of pages published in the Federal Register, how he issued fewer regulations which imposed significant economic costs on Americans, etc.

These are just “smoke and mirrors.” The Federal Register does not codify regulations; it is a publication used by Federal agencies to request comments, publish proposed and final rules, issue regulatory analysis, and repeal regulations. The number of pages has no bearing whatsoever on the number and impact of regulations on Americans.

As for issuing fewer regulations which impose significant economic costs on Americans, this is merely a confession that he imposed burdensome regulations on Americans, just at a lower rate than his predecessors. This is the equivalent of a fitness coach making a pitch that you should hire them, because their customers only gain three pounds a week, instead of the twenty that the other so-called fitness coach offers.

The fact of the matter is that Trump is not a small government conservative, but a big government conservative. Do not expect that regulations will be significantly reduced if he is re-elected, because past experience says they will not be (past experience also says that he will establish a dictatorship, but that’s a topic for another day).