RUTHFULLY YOURS

Every new president, dating back to Jimmy Carter, has promised to cut regulations. Even President Obama’s executive orders on improving the regulatory process and cutting red tape sounded impressive when they were issued. That was before six of the seven all-time-high years for pages of federal regulations occurred during his tenure.

Four decades of nonstop growth in federal regulation show that tackling Washington’s bureaucracy is tougher than it sounds. The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations is more than 175,000 pages long, having grown steadily since the 1970s. Federal regulations aren’t just words on a page; these pages contain more than one million commandments from Washington in the form of restrictive words such as “must,” “cannot,” or “shall.”

But based on President Trump’s first 100 days, there is reason for optimism that this trend is about to change.

President Trump has already issued two executive orders on regulatory reform. They sent a message to executive agencies: Regulatory restrictions on businesses will not be able to keep growing on autopilot.

Trump’s hiring freeze will also help lower the rate of new regulations. As research from the Mercatus Center has shown, there is a high correlation between the number of employees at an agency and the number of regulations issued by that agency. President Trump has also taken advantage of the Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress the power to overturn recently finalized regulations through a simple majority vote. So far, he has signed at least 13 such repeals. Previously, this tool had been successfully used only once in its 20-year history.

Though President Trump’s lofty promise to cut regulation by “by 75 percent, maybe more” is likely unattainable, simply halting the growth in federal regulations would be a massive achievement. And the president has many methods available to him to accomplish this.

Moving into the next phase of his first term, there are three main legislative solutions that President Trump can use to follow through on his promises to cut regulation. These solutions address the accumulation of old regulations, the creation of costly new regulations, and the lack of public participation in the regulatory process.

First, the Trump Administration needs to get rid of outdated, ineffective regulations.

If President Trump decides to capitalize on his reputation as a deal maker, an innovative idea from the center-left Progressive Policy Institute would address regulatory accumulation. Both the Regulatory Improvement Act and the SCRUB Act create a “Regulatory Improvement Commission” to come up with a package of older regulations to eliminate that would then go through Congress for an up-or-down vote. Focusing on older regulations would take some of the politics out of regulatory reform, and voting on a large package in this way would limit the ability of established interests to interfere with the process.

Congress is making good progress on rolling back Obama Administration regulations, but a case of political nerves is protecting two obvious targets for repeal that are still standing: a Labor Department exemption from the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (Erisa) for state-run retirement plans and the Education Department’s borrower defense rule.

Such left-leaning states as California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Oregon have passed laws to set up state-administered retirement accounts for workers in the private economy who aren’t covered by employer plans. Employers would be required to automatically enroll workers in the state plans and deduct payroll contributions—up to 10% of wages in California—though employees could opt out.

The putative goal is to reduce administrative fees through economies of scale. But workers can easily sign up for a low-cost Roth IRA over the internet and choose how much to contribute. Liberals don’t trust workers to make their own financial decisions, so Democrats want to “nudge”—the behavioral economist’s euphemism for compel—them to sock away more money while giving politicians control of their investments.

Many workers would unknowingly contribute a share of their wages to retirement plans they don’t know exist and may not be able to exit. They also wouldn’t be protected by Erisa since former Labor Secretary Tom Perez last year exempted state plans with automatic enrollment. Thus, an employer in Wisconsin who enrolls workers in a 401(k) would be deemed a fiduciary. But in California an employer’s fiduciary obligations would be waived if he enrolls his employees in the state plan. Employers would have a new incentive to drop workers on the public plans that would be guaranteed by taxpayers.

The House has passed a resolution overturning the Erisa exemption, but the Senate isn’t moving. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker appears to be the main obstacle, arguing that states should be able to experiment. But they don’t need an Erisa waiver for that. The issue is that the Labor rule unfairly favors government plans in a way that could hurt workers.

Meanwhile, Republicans should also move to rescind a midnight rule by the Obama Administration that lets borrowers who claim they’ve been duped by their colleges to discharge their student loans. The Education Department estimated the rule would cost taxpayers between $9.5 billion and $21.2 billion over the next decade, though Obama officials repeatedly underestimated the cost of loan forgiveness.

“The Trump principles show the President has made growth his highest priority, and they are a rebuke to the Washington consensus that 1% or 2% growth is the best America can do. Now Mr. Trump has to show results. If anything close to his this reform can survive the political maelstrom, it will go a long way toward returning to the abundance of the 1980s and 1990s.”

The White House rolled out its tax principles on Tuesday, investing new energy in the first serious reform debate in 30 years. While the details are sparse and will have to be filled in by Congress, President Trump’s outline resembles the supply-side principles he campaigned on and is an ambitious and necessary economic course correction that would help restore broad-based U.S. prosperity.

Many voters heard Mr. Trump’s make-America-great-again slogan as a promise to raise their incomes and improve economic opportunities after a long stagnation. Eight years of 2% growth since the recession ended in 2009 is the weakest recovery in the postwar era, and the result has been rising anxiety and diminished expectations for millions of Americans.

Faster growth of 3% a year or more is possible, but it will take better policies, and tax reform is an indispensable lever. Mr. Trump’s modernization would be a huge improvement on the current tax code that would give the economy a big lift, especially on the corporate side. The reform would sharply cut the business income rate to 15% from 35%, while simplifying the code for individuals and cutting some marginal rates.

Though Mr. Trump’s proposal dabbles in some politically fashionable tax redistribution, at its core it is an exercise in growth economics. The cuts would be permanent and immediate, and the rates are low enough to enhance the incentives to work and invest.
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The plan also fits the economic moment, because a main source of U.S. malaise is poor business investment. Spending on the likes of new factories, equipment and software is soft, which in turn has undermined the productivity gains that produce more jobs, higher wages and higher living standards. Productivity growth in the 2000s and 2010s is only about half the average of the 1980s and 1990s.

And from Brooklyn, yet, with an exaggerated Brooklyn accent, making a career of selling America her Islamic version of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Everyone with half a brain has fallen for Linda Sarsour’s stealth jihad in a hijab. But not me. Never me. Virtually every time I see her photo flashing the ISIS symbol of a finger pointed in the air (to Allah, he’s the greatest, don’t you know?), I want to reciprocate with a middle finger. And I do, even if it’s to a picture of her carefully made-up mug.

Nathaniel Zelinsky writes in Foreign Affairs that the gesture refers to thetawhid, “the belief in the oneness of God and a key component of the Muslim religion.” More specifically, though, it refers to their fundamentalist interpretation of the tawhid, which rejects any other view, including other Islamic interpretations, as idolatry. Zelinsky writes that when ISIS uses the gesture, it is affirming an ideology that demands the destruction of the West, as well as any form of pluralism. For potential recruits around the globe, it also shows their belief that they will dominate the world.

Sarsour to say the least, is not a nice person. Daniel Pipes published a long list of Sarsour’s publicity stunts and consummate narcissism and alleged achievements in a long post in March 2010.

Mar. 8, 2011 update: Sarsour has tweeted a stunningly crude and vicious attack on two anti-Islamist leaders: “Brigitte Gabriel= Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She’s asking 4 an a$$ whippin’. I wish I could take their vaginas away – they don’t deserve to be women.”

Feb. 8, 2015 update: Sarsour just can’t get enough of her alleged beauty. Her remarks (ignorant typo left as is) on this Instagram picture: “Blue is a power color. Maybe your born with it, Maybe it’s Maybelline, I praise the lord that I am born with it. #media #womenarebetterateverything #women.” Oh, and what to make of the infantile feminism, “women are better at everything”?

Sep. 9, 2014 update: Sarsour squealed “hate crime” when a street person in Brooklyn accosted her on Sep. 3, winning national attention for her plight and the alleged problem of anti-Muslim bias. For example, the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, wrote her a tweet: “New Yorkers stand with you, @lsarsour. Our city will never condone such glaring acts of bigotry and intolerance.”