CEI Comments on President Trump's “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today praised President Trump for his executive order entitled “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch”

CEI President Kent Lassman said:

“The burden of the federal government on the economy has grown like kudzu over the past two decades, under both parties, and it needs to be thinned to allow room for innovation and dynamic enterprise. The President’s executive order to reorganize the executive branch is an encouraging sign for consumers, taxpayers and businesses alike because it shows he is focused on the serious negative effects of too much complex regulation. 

“By ordering the director of the Office of Management and Budget to compile a plan, based on agency recommendations, the administration will be poised to work with Congress to reshape the administrative state.  Today regulation is used as a tool of economic control.  It is time to return to agencies bound by law which can serve as a foundation for economic growth.

“Bringing agencies in line with statutory authority will introduce cost savings in the management of government and unleash the power of dynamic growth in an economy no longer shackled by regulatory dark matter.”

CEI Vice President of Policy Wayne Crews and author of the report Mapping Washington’s Lawlessness: An Inventory of “Regulatory Dark Matter” said:

“President Trump’s executive order today requesting reports from each agency on how to streamline the federal government is the right start in terms of recognizing the need for a dramatic downsizing of federal agency power.

“Just last month, the president called on these same agencies to create regulatory reform task forces and appoint regulatory reform officers with directives specifically to reduce regulatory burdens. Congress should take back its authority over federal agencies. The kinds of revisions that we may see during and after these months-long self-analyses can go a long way toward reforming the regulatory process, particularly if our government scales back ‘regulatory dark matter’ including presidential and agency memoranda, guidance documents, bulletins, and public notices. These directives interject the federal government into our businesses, our communities, and our personal lives on matters such as healthcare, retirement, labor policy, education policy, and more.”