There’s a terrible venom coursing through our economy.
Everyday Americans feel it, even if they don’t know exactly what it is or how it got there. Nothing quite works how it used to. We have the sense that everything is getting worse. And our collective vision of the future seems to be getting dimmer around the edges.
The malaise we’re now experiencing seems unfathomable given the booming economy of 2019. But such is the rapid toxicity of nearly four years of unprecedented executive spending and the record-setting stream of regulation coming from unelected bureaucrats in Washington.
On the very first day of the Biden administration, the White House injected a massive dose of 17 executive actions into the country, including one to reverse the Trump-era checks and balances on unelected Washington bureaucrats. The current administration wanted to “advance regulations” more quickly and easily without oversight. Millions of federal employees now had the ability to create tens of thousands of rules, which would govern every aspect of life. And over the last four years, the Biden-Harris administration unleashed this bureaucratic leviathan like never before in American history, spending more than $1.7 trillion via executive order and administrative rule.
The inflationary impacts of printing and spending nearly $2 trillion without congressional approval have devasted working-class Americans, who now struggle to meet basic needs. Inflation is costing the average family of four $1,423 more per month, or $17,080 per year, to purchase the same goods and services as in January 2021.
That regulatory spending spree would be bad enough. But adding insult to injury was the torrent of new regulations swelling the Federal Register to more than 300,000 pages, adding 1,674 new pages of Washington rules per week.
These new federal rules added more than 312 million paperwork hours of compliance, hitting small businesses, farmers, manufacturers, and producers who now bear more than $2.6 trillion in cumulative regulatory compliance burden. Much of these compliance costs get passed on to consumers via price increases, another pain point for struggling families that the Harris campaign blames on price-gouging grocers.
The sad reality is there’s very little standing in the way of the current administration’s accelerated rule by fiat. And there’s nothing stopping the next administration from continuing the regulatory speed run — a likely outcome should Harris win the presidency after blaming businesses for rising costs. Most people are desperately worried about inflation and its impact on their families and futures.
Fortunately, Congress has the cure to staunch the flow of crushing inflation and tackle the rising cost-of-living crisis. It’s a reform called the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, or REINS, Act. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) just reintroduced the legislation in this Congress.
The reform would restore Congress’s “power of the purse” and rein in unchecked bureaucratic spending by requiring an up-or-down vote of any regulation with an economic impact exceeding $100 million annually. The executive branch would be forced to slow down and make the case to the public why that regulation is needed.
A version of the REINS Act has been successfully implemented in Florida, where rules with a price tag of at least $1 million over five years require legislative approval. It’s helped combat unnecessary red tape and has been one of the many policies that has brought prosperity to the state. It worked in Florida, and it can work in Washington, D.C., too. But Congress must make reclaiming its own authority a top priority in the year ahead.
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Over the last four years, we’ve seen the damage caused by the executive branch in regulating and spending money without congressional approval. The REINS Act would put an end to this era of bureaucratic rule that is lowering our standard of living and dimming the American dream. Restoring our nation’s prosperity is going to take major change in Washington.
Congress must rein in the budget-busting bureaucrats and retake control over the purse strings. The public needs the REINS Act. And Congress can provide the antidote to cure the current financial crisis we face.
Nick Stehle is the Vice President of Communications for the Foundation for Government Accountability