Joe Biden’s Jungle of Regulations

Along with the 20 percent cumulative inflation that has ravaged household budgets since 2021, President Joe Biden’s tenure has been marked by a deluge of new regulations that have cost businesses and consumers dearly.

According to a report out earlier this year from the American Action Forum (AAF), new regulations imposed by the Biden administration from Inauguration Day 2021 through April 2024 have cost taxpayers some $1.4 trillion, while adding 267 million annual paperwork hours. For reference, Trump administration regulations introduced over that same period of time during his first term cost taxpayers $30.1 billion, while Obama rules cost $303.1 billion.

According to Wayne Crews from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, these regulations are having a significant impact on the economy, hampering growth and innovation. If these regulations were conceptualized as a tax, they would surpass the federal income tax, amounting to approximately $14,600 per family.

As former Trump economic advisor Casey Mulligan testified to Congress in 2023, four years of Trump in office “reduced regulatory costs by about $11,000 per household.” But if Biden remains in the White House and the current rate of new laws and regulations continues apace, costs per household from Biden’s regulatory onslaught could reach a staggering $60,000.

The sheer number of Biden regulatory actions is also shattering previous records. In 2022, AAF finds, Congress passed a total of 247 laws. That same year, the Biden administration introduced some 3,168 new regulations – a ratio of nearly 13 to 1.

In addition, the Biden administration has issued a torrent of guidance documents, proclamations, memoranda, bulletins, circulars, and letters outlining how agencies should perform their congressionally-mandated duties. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) terms these documents “regulatory dark matter,” as they “are subject to little scrutiny or democratic accountability but carry practical, binding regulatory effects.”

In an interview, retired Economics Professor August Fritz de Riehl, who advised the president of the Austrian Central Bank in the 1980s, described Biden’s regulatory agenda as a “bureaucratic jungle which stifles entrepreneurship and productivity.” Dr. Riehl, who observed first-hand the de-regulatory success of the Reagan and Trump administrations, told me that Biden’s approach was the exact opposite. While Reagan and Trump based their regulatory agenda on a few common-sense principles that everyone understood, he said, Biden is attempting to micromanage every industry from Washington D.C.

Dr. Riehl added that four more years with Biden in office would likely result in a “drastic collapse in competitiveness and product quality,” warning that, as is the case in Europe, overregulation would paralyze businesses. “It is an abyss,” he said. “One regulation can be accompanied by hundreds or thousands of pages of interpretations, and you have to comply with it all.”

Gianluigi Fisce, another retired economics professor, also warned me that Biden’s regulatory excess is putting on the United States “on the same path as Europe, which is heading toward economic stagnation and contraction.” In the 1990s, he explained, despite warnings from him and other experts, Brussels “chose judges and regulators over innovators and capital – a terrible mistake.”

“Regulators regard businesses as their slaves or even enemies,” Dr. Fisce said. This influence “limits consumer choices by effectively dictating what companies can produce.” A stark example of this which he pointed to is Obamacare, which notably expanded government control over health insurers, influencing clients in the direction the administration desired.

Small businesses under Biden have in particular found themselves buried by an endless sea of regulatory paperwork and compliance requirements to bring any new product to market. Even one small mistake is enough to initiate a recall from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. As compliance costs have increased, many small companies have been forced out of business entirely.

Dr. Cnute Haukebo, an economist who advised Latin American governments in the 1990s, told me that another problem with Biden’s regulatory regime is “the moods and interpretive imaginations of bureaucracy.” As he explained, rules and regulations are often sufficiently broad to allow activist-minded bureaucrats to apply rules in a manner that favors a certain political agenda.

For instance, Dr. Haukebo said, regulations labeled as “green” have provided a “green light for extensive bureaucratic intervention in businesses worldwide.” Under the guise of fighting “climate change,” the Biden administration has inserted itself into virtually every industry, from the energy sector to auto manufacturing. The result has been slowing growth and higher prices for consumers.

Throughout his campaign for president in 2020 and tenure in office, Joe Biden has been careful to rhetorically distance himself from the “socialist” label, repeatedly claiming that he is a “capitalist.” But his regulatory agenda has told a different story, granting the federal government broad leeway to put its thumb on the scales of the free market.

The costs of this approach to the American economy and American consumers are clear. With Election Day rapidly approaching, voters will finally have the chance to escape Biden’s regulatory jungle.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.