House Republicans are taking on President Joe Biden’s use of executive regulations to push through his liberal agenda with a massive army of federal regulators.
In its budget bill, the GOP announced steps to shine a spotlight on agency regulations that are often adopted without needed congressional approval and that put a financial strain on Wall Street and Main Street.
“This problem has only gotten worse under President Biden, who has spent over $1.5 trillion through various unilateral and even unconstitutional executive actions,” the House budget legislation said.
It was proposed the same day Biden unleashed his $7.3 trillion tax and spending package.
In a radical move, the House budget bill would eliminate “all new regulations” created during Biden’s first term and permanently kill those shelved during the coronavirus crisis.
The proposal won applause from anti-regulatory forces in Washington.
Wayne Crews, with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said, “it’s hard to argue with the call ‘to examine ways to relieve the burdens of overregulation throughout the federal government,’ and ‘to ensure that once harmful and costly regulations are repealed.’”
Crews has long pushed Congress to both crack down on White House regulations and to take back its role as the nation’s regulator. He told Secrets, “it’s refreshing to see that there is recognition that there’s a fusion of the spending and regulatory state. Everyone calls regulation a hidden tax.”
Washington has grown because of regulations, he said. The House Budget Committee’s bill said that spending on regulatory agencies has increased from $4 billion in 1960 to almost $70 billion by 2021. The regulatory army has grown from 57,109 to 288,409 and the pages of rules published in the Federal Register have jumped from 22,877 to 188,221 a year.
Former President Donald Trump has promised to repeal many Biden regulations if he is elected. During his first term, Trump required that at least two regulations be killed for every new one his team sought.
SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS
Still, the House budget, just like Biden’s budget, is not likely to win approval in the sharply divided Congress, though it gives a look at what might be approved if Republicans win in the fall election.
The House budget bill from Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) concluded that focusing on cutting regulations would “not only reduce burdensome, costly regulations but … reestablish and strengthen the role of Congress in checking executive branch overreach in the future.”