Shrinking the federal bureaucracy would spur economic growth and reduce costs to taxpayers, according to a report released Wednesday that targets agencies such as the EPA, the National Labor Relations Board and the Commerce Department for paring down or outright elimination.
The free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute said dramatically decreasing federal regulations “could boost the economy, unshackle job creators, and put more money back in Americans’ pockets.”
“Neither clarity nor efficiency in government has improved in the past eight decades,” says CEI President Kent Lassman. “The federal government’s multitudes of offices, boards, commissions, and agencies are not at all organized and surely not suited to the task of responsible government. It is long past time for Washington to focus on regulatory reform.”
President Trump has embarked on a rollback of Obama-era regulations, and has cut back significantly on the number of new rules being imposed on businesses.
But the CEI report, which examined seven federal agencies, proposes other steps that the White House and Congress can take “to diminish regulatory burdens and rein in overreach by government regulators.”
CEI analysts say taxpayers and the economy would benefit from reforming the Depression-era Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and “drastically shrinking and reevaluating the need for” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The report recommends a further curtailing of the EPA and making its operations more transparent; limiting the authority of the Federal Communications Commission or abolishing it altogether; bringing “a sense of order” to the Department of Commerce, and rethinking the functions of the Securities and Exchange Commission and National Labor Relations Board.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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