Trump's Touted Deregulatory Record Not As Great As You Think

#1
n_huffhines

n_huffhines

What's it gonna cost?
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#1
First of all, let me say that I'll take any deregulation I can get, but like with most things, Trump's camp is exaggerating/misrepresenting. This article is a little tedious, so I'll summarize:

"Regulatory reform is a cornerstone of President Trump's agenda for economic growth," wrote his regulatory czar Neomi Rao in October 2018. "The first two years of the Administration have produced unparalleled reform, and we project even more significant results in the coming year."
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No bitch....Carter majorly deregulated air travel, trucking, and the financial industry, which were huge driving factors (with actual substance) that led to the boom in the 80's. Nothing Trump has done comes even close to that kind of impact.

Trump says 22 rules repealed for every regulation passed. He's counting 176 actions. 44 of these were initiated by Obama. only 57 are significant (meaning they saved the economy $100M+). Obama was responsible for 4 of those. 11 were just delayed, not eliminated. All 14 regulatory actions taken by Trump are significant. So 22:1 sounds amazing, but it's not really representative of what is actually happening. Trump has only initiated the removal of 42 significant regulations and has implemented 14, or a 3:1 ratio. It'd be nice to know the total impact of all of these.

One deregulatory action counted by the Trump administration was the elimination of Department of Education rules governing the Troops-to-Teachers grant program, which subsidizes veterans who are pursuing teacher's certification. The program still exists, but now it is administered by the Department of Defense.

The story is similar with the administration's repeal of rules for a Department of Commerce program that gave grants to local governments setting up TV and radio stations. The Trump administration axed these rules in September 2017, about six years after funding for the program had been discontinued.

In one interesting example from earlier this year, the Department of Labor counted as a deregulatory action the changing of the mailing address for its Benefits Review Board.

In another supposedly deregulatory move, the Trump administration compiled all the Department of Agriculture's import restrictions on plants into one "Plants for Planting" manual, without changing any of the underlying rules.

Even some of the truly significant changes the administration likes to talk up are not the result of Trump's deregulatory drive, but were rather policies that had been in the works for years, and that the Trump administration just happened to be in office for when they came into effect.

Take fishing regulations. In its Fiscal Year 2018 regulatory report, "Cutting Red Tape, Unleashing Economic Freedom," the administration included a whole section on "freeing America's fisherman" which notes that "large areas off the coast of New England have been opened to commercial sea scalloping for the first time in year," a move that is supposed to produce $654 million in economic benefits.

The change the report is referring to is known as the Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 (OHA 2), which did indeed open up new fishing grounds for the commercial fishing industry.

Missing from the "Cutting Red Tape" report is the fact that most of the deregulatory changes included in OHA 2 had actually been recommendations from the New England Fisheries Management Council, which had been working on an update to federal law since at least 2004.

"As thrilled as we were that OHA was implemented, I think that was more of a staff determination after years of review. I don't think I could call that something that came from the oval office or from the cabinet," says Bob Vanasse, executive director for Saving Seafood, the media relations arm of the commercial fishing industry.

This kind of puffery has led Shapiro to treat Trump's deregulatory drive as essentially meaningless. He's been joined by other critics of the administration like Washington Post's columnist Jennifer Rubin, who has called Trump's deregulation "a myth."
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Trump Brags About Deregulation, but a Huge Number of His Deregulatory Actions Were Started Under Obama
 
#3
#3
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#6
#6
Grand Vol said:
I think the parameters put on the criteria are kinda steep, no?

$100 million as a baseline?
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What are you basing that on? The article links to the source of the criteria...this is the baseline used by the Office of Budget & Management, since Bill Clinton (so should maybe be updated to control for inflation to $175M).
 
#10
#10
n_huffhines said:
What are you basing that on? The article links to the source of the criteria...this is the baseline used by the Office of Budget & Management, since Bill Clinton (so should maybe be updated to control for inflation to $175M).
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I'm not arguing, but I think if we are to give full credit if it's due, a figure cannot be slapped on it as a baseline, OMB be darned.

If you have 5 regulations worth $50 million in "savings" apiece, they should not qualify because they didn't meet the $100 million threshold? Even though combined, that's a quarter of a billion dollars.
 
#12
#12
Grand Vol said:
I'm not arguing, but I think if we are to give full credit if it's due, a figure cannot be slapped on it as a baseline, OMB be darned.

If you have 5 regulations worth $50 million in "savings" apiece, they should not qualify because they didn't meet the $100 million threshold? Even though combined, that's a quarter of a billion dollars.
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Conversely, the 14 significant regulatory actions could be big enough to wipe out all benefit from the 132 deregulatory actions initiated by Trump. We need all the numbers to get a clear picture of what is going on.
 
#13
#13
As an example, Huff (from your article)

One deregulatory action counted by the Trump administration was the elimination of Department of Education rules governing the Troops-to-Teachers grant program, which subsidizes veterans who are pursuing teacher's certification. The program still exists, but now it is administered by the Department of Defense.
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Link to the change:

View Rule

Under the Troops-to-Teachers program, the Secretary of Education transfers funds to the Department of Defense for the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) to provide assistance, including a stipend of up to $5,000, to an eligible member of the Armed Forces so that he or she can obtain certification or licensing as an elementary school teacher, secondary school teacher, or vocational/technical teacher and become a highly qualified teacher by demonstrating competency in each of the subjects he or she teaches. In addition, the program helps the individual find employment in a high-need local educational agency or public charter school. The Department will rescind its regulations relating to this program. We are taking this deregulatory action because this program has been transferred to the Department of Defense.
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So, basically, the DoE had been transferring money to the DoD for a program that's already DoD-centric (DANTES) and transferring control to the Department where the people are. Sometimes eliminating the regs means streamlining the process and not having as many cooks in the kitchen.
 
#14
#14
Also, might not save a lot of money with the post I just made, but I'd almost guarantee you someone in the DoE likely had that as a "primary" job. I.E. overseeing the transfer of funds to the DoD for the program. I don't know this for a fact, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a job was "created" specifically for that purpose.

I'm all about eliminating some Office of Redundant Redundancy .gov employees as well. Might not show significant savings, but any time you get one less person drawing a taxpayer funded check not having to work that hard, it's a good thing.
 
#17
#17
n_huffhines said:
First of all, let me say that I'll take any deregulation I can get, but like with most things, Trump's camp is exaggerating/misrepresenting. This article is a little tedious, so I'll summarize:



No bitch....Carter majorly deregulated air travel, trucking, and the financial industry, which were huge driving factors (with actual substance) that led to the boom in the 80's. Nothing Trump has done comes even close to that kind of impact.

Trump says 22 rules repealed for every regulation passed. He's counting 176 actions. 44 of these were initiated by Obama. only 57 are significant (meaning they saved the economy $100M+). Obama was responsible for 4 of those. 11 were just delayed, not eliminated. All 14 regulatory actions taken by Trump are significant. So 22:1 sounds amazing, but it's not really representative of what is actually happening. Trump has only initiated the removal of 42 significant regulations and has implemented 14, or a 3:1 ratio. It'd be nice to know the total impact of all of these.



Trump Brags About Deregulation, but a Huge Number of His Deregulatory Actions Were Started Under Obama
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So, thanks Obama?
 
#20
#20
volfanjustin said:
Oh look another anti-Trump thread from our resident "libertarian" SHOCKED!!!!!
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Weird that I didn't see a comment from you on the pro-Trump thread I started yesterday.

Weird that you didn't make a comment related to the thread topic.

Weird that you didn't contribute anything of substance.

Weird that you used the same old tired trolling angle.

You just keep on surprising.
 
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#22
#22
Let me ad lib for you... The Dow Jones Industrials closed down another 300 points today when President Hillary Clinton declared that all men must undergo DNA testing to prove they never committed rape.
Blah blah blah
 
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#23
#23
VolStrom said:
What would you be talking about if Hillary was President?
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Probably a lot of the same stuff, to be honest. I tend to attack each admin based on the values their side supposedly espouses, so that's why I'm harder on Trump about tariffs, spending, etc. and why I was harder on Obama about foreign policy, war on drugs, etc.

There is probably about 70-80% overlap in what irks me about the kinds of R's and D's our country selects to run for POTUS.
 
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