Deregulation is Driving Success
Newt Gingrich July 2017
Democrats and their friends in the media will do anything they can to distract and discreditPresident Donald Trump and Republicans, but not one of them can reasonably deny the massive success of the Trump-led deregulatory agenda – or the huge stock market gains that have come as a result.
Since the start of President Trump’s term, he and Congressional Republicans, led by Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, have revoked 14 job-killing federal regulations through the Congressional Review Act. This includes 1,114 pages of needlessly expensive labor rules, arduous environmental regulations, destructive financial guidelines, and other economy-hampering bureaucratic decrees.
Research by the American Action Forum based on impact analysis created by federal agencies shows that repealing these regulations “will save $3.7 billion in total regulatory costs ($1.1 billion annually) and eliminate 4.2 million hours of paperwork.” Non-government estimates suggest cutting these harmful rules will save more than $36.2 billion, according to the AAF.
Investors have welcomed President Trump’s red tape cutting rally.
At market close Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 21,796 points, the Nasdaq was at 6,382 points, and the S&P 500 Index at 2,475 points. These are all near record high ranges – and are especially remarkable when you look at where they were when President Trump won election. On November 8, 2016 – Election Day – the DJIA was 3,464 points lower, at 18,332; the Nasdaq was 1,189 points lower, at 5193; and the S&P 500 was 336 points lower at 2,139.
The good news is that investor enthusiasm can and should continue because the regulatory cuts are here to stay.
The CRA, which was part of the Contract with America that we passed when I was Speaker of the House, doesn’t just allow Congress to claw back regulations that were enacted at the end of a previous president’s term — it also requires an act of Congress to re-impose such rules or those similar. After only six months, this115th Congress has used the CRA more than any other in history.
And Republicans aren’t stopping. House members are moving to repeal another backwards regulation through the CRA, which was made by the unaccountable Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bad rule puts the interest of trial lawyers over the American people, represents 225 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations, and costs $76 million a year.
While President Trump and Congress are aggressively repealing burdensome regulations from the Obama era, the President’s cabinet members are also cutting down the number of rules made by the government.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the number of rules put forward by the Trump administration is at a 17-year low, and many of the rules the administration has passed actually reverse previous rules. Sofie Miller of George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center told the WSJ that, for example, one third of the 66 regulatory actions taken so far by the Environmental Protection Agency have been rule withdrawals.
Instead of acknowledging (and being happy) that investors are responding positively to aggressive deregulation, pro-business policy, and the promise of tax cuts this year, some in the media are making hay about what Trump is tweeting about the bull market. CNN Money wrote on July 20 that Trump is taking a great risk by publicly commenting so much on market success because, “every president over the past 70 years has eventually encountered a stock market storm.”
This perfectly illustrates what the media still doesn’t get. As I explain in my new #1 New York Times bestselling book, Understanding Trump, our President is a billionaire businessman, not a politician. We haven’t had a commander-in-chief like him in American history – much less the last 70 years. He isn’t afraid of risk, and he knows how to get the government out of the way of American productivity, jobs, and growth.
The Left and the media will no doubt continue to harp about tweets, Washington gossip, and other distractions, but Republicans and the Trump administration are going to continue cutting costly regulations – and Americans will notice.
Your Friend,
Newt
