Fixing The Economy: It’s been widely reported, both here and elsewhere, that President Obama is now engaged in a dramatic, last-minute regulatory binge that will require the efforts of both incoming President-elect Donald Trump and Congress to undo. What hasn’t been reported is the cost: As Trump might say, it’s yuuuge.
It’s funny how such things as the actual costs of new rules get lost in the shuffle. But those costs are significant, and have created a major drag on the economy’s growth. Today, estimates put the total federal regulatory cost to the economy at $2 trillion a year — or roughly 12% of the economy. At 80,000 pages and growing, the Federal Register, the government’s regulatory bible, has become a bewildering maze of rules, requirements and impositions on business that require accountants and lawyers to maneuver through.
In recent days, Obama has unveiled five major “midnight” regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior, a report from the American Action Forum (AAF) shows. Alone, these new rules will cost about $5.1 billion a year and require at least 350,000 hours of paperwork from companies.
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