Category Archives: Executive actions

Barack Obama, CEI - Competitive Enterprise Institute, Executive actions, Executive orders, George W. Bush, Regulatory Costs, The Heritage Foundation

What difference does the number of regulations make?

Major regulationsPresident Obama loves to say that he’s issued fewer regulations than George W. Bush did. Obama does that to distract and confuse people because it’s both true and extremely misleading. It’s the cost that counts — the economic impact — far more than the number of regulations.

An illustration: One person may have twice as many coins as another person, but if they have four pennies and the other person has two quarters, then the smaller number of coins is clearly more significant.

Obama’s smaller number of regulations have a far bigger and more negative impact on our economy than Bush’s regulations did. As FactCheck.org noted early in 2012, “It’s true (barely) that Bush issued more new regulations than Obama at the same point in their presidencies — but Obama didn’t mention that his cost more.“

More from Competitive Enterprise Institute: https://cei.org/blog/obama-has-issued-more-economically-significant-rules-65-years-bush-did-eight

Barack Obama, Congress, Cost-of-Living, Executive actions, Regulatory Costs, The Heritage Foundation

The big picture: Six years of red tape rising under Obama

Red tape rising-w Heritage logo

Runaway regulations from the executive branch, aided by vast delegations of power issued by Congress–these are the trends that burden Americans, outlined in the 9th annual “Red Tape Rising” report by The Heritage Foundation.

Highlights of the report by Heritage scholars James Gattuso and Diane Katz include:

  • The number and cost of government regulations kept climbing in 2014. 27 new major rules in 2014 pushed Obama’s six-year total to 184, “with scores of other rules in the pipeline.” These 184 alone have an annual cost of at least $80-billion
  • “President Barack Obama has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to act by regulatory fiat instead of executing laws as passed by Congress.”
  • But “A great deal of the excessive regulation in the past six years is the result of Congress’ granting broad powers to agencies through passage of vast and vaguely worded legislation.”
  • The result? “Intensifying Washington’s control over the economy and Americans’ lives.”

The full report: Red Tape Rising: Six Years of Escalating Regulation Under Obama