Republicans hate regulations. Donald Trump hates regulations. OMB chief Mick Mulvaney hates regulations. So it must have killed him to publish the most recent report to Congress on the costs and benefits of major regulations. Unfortunately, there’s a regulation that requires it, so the report was submitted once again. Here are the estimated net benefits (benefits minus costs) of major regulations over the past decade:¹
The thing to note here is that the net benefits are all positive: that is, the benefits far outweigh the costs. This is because federal agencies don’t generally adopt regulations that have a net cost. The people being regulated may hate all these regulations, but they aren’t the target for this stuff. You and I are.
Of course, the people being regulated now have the ear of the White House. A year from now, I wonder if Mick Mulvaney will have figured out some way to issue this report without making regulations look so damn beneficial?
¹Costs and benefits are always given as a range of values. I used averages for these charts.
