By I & I Editorial Board | December 05, 2024
There’s not much Donald Trump could ever do as president that will generate more resistance and hatred than bleeding the fetid capital swamp. It’s arguable that there’s nothing he could ever do as president that would be better for the republic.
Trump’s decision to make administration appointments from figures who are outside of the establishment adds to the loathing that so many in the political-media establishment already directed toward him. Various grifters, vipers and unprincipled schemers from both parties have spent their adult lives seeking seats of power, comfort and endless tenure in the capital. To see the secretarial positions, directorships, administrator posts and bureaucratic jobs that they have for years lusted after filled by outsiders makes them angry. No one should feel sorry for them, though. They are a drag on both our civic health and our economy.
In regard to the latter, the damage is more extensive that most would ever guess. A research paper updated during the first year of Trump’s initial term that measured the “cost per regulator” in the bureaucracy reached some appalling yet unsurprising conclusions about Washington’s impact on the private sector. According to the authors, “one regulator costs the U.S. economy the equivalent of 138 private-sector jobs per year.”
Here are a few more choice findings from the paper.
- “Each $1 million change in the regulatory budget is associated with a change of about four regulator jobs.”
- “A 10% cut in the regulatory budget results in a loss of 21,756 regulatory jobs.”
- That same cut “provides for an additional $1.2 trillion in GDP annually over the five-year window, or $244 billion annually.”
- “Each regulator costs the U.S. economy $11 million annually.”
The root cause is, of course, overregulation. Trump needs to continue the deregulatory agenda he promised during his first term, when he said he was committed to cutting the regulatory federal regulatory framework by 75%.
Naturally the Swamp creatures are bitterly opposed, as are the media, which have a thriving parasitic and symbiotic relationship with the administrative system. The Washington Post, for instance, darkly warns that the “most immediate impact” of Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency could “could be to demoralize the federal workforce and increase attrition.”
“Budget experts say the [efficiency] effort could prove hugely disruptive to workers and businesses that rely on certainty in federal regulation and spending,” reports the Post.
Which means corporate rent seekers and industry moochers will have to compete, and competition is always the friend of the consumer – and the more heated it is, the greater the advantages for buyers.
Disrupting the federal regulation machine will also fuel investment and innovation, the keys to economic growth. There’s much for Trump to do over the next four years, but outside of saving us from being overrun by our enemies from without and within, it’s the most important thing he can do.
Issues & Insights was founded by seasoned journalists of the IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day – without fear or favor.
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