Federal regulations cost our economy in America hundreds of thousands of jobs and trillions of dollars every year. And unfortunately, new regulations are being issued all the time.
America ceased long ago to have a true free market economy, with onerous regulations, socialistic government programs, and over-reaching government meddling restricting innovation, growth, and expansion (except for the expansion of massive monopolies). Indeed, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) announced that since agencies issued 15 new final regulations last week, that is the equivalent of a new final regulation every eleven hours and 12 minutes.
The federal government should regulate some industries to a certain extent, but it is involved in many sectors it should never have entered, including education and healthcare, and it over-regulates even those sectors it should oversee. America has spent far too long accepting the argument that “safety” is more important than anything else, and that the federal government should always be the answer to any perceived problem. The Founders would be horrified at the colossal weight of regulations that many of us take for granted.
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But don’t just take my word for it; there’s plenty of proof. Let’s look at some data from CEI:
• With 2,0351 final regulations so far in 2025, agencies are on pace to issue 2,453 final regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 3,248 final regulations in 2024, 3,018 in 2023, and 3,168 in 2022.
• Agencies issued eight proposed regulations in the Federal Registerlast week, after eight the previous week.
• With 1,254 proposed regulations so far in 2025, agencies are on pace to issue 1,500 proposed regulations this year… There are nine 3(f)(1) or economically significant regulations so far in 2025, with one in the last week.
In 2024, there were 1,769 proposed regulations, although in 2023, there were 2,102 proposed regulations. Furthermore, authorities added 225 new pages to the Federal Register just last week. So far this year, 513 new government regulations have affected small businesses.
CEI previously estimated that compliance with burdensome federal regulations costs the U.S. economy $2.155 trillion every year. In a January opinion piece for the Epoch Times, economic expert Peter St. Onge estimated that each and every federal regulator — and there are hundreds — costs America $16.5 million of economic output annually.
Back in 2017, an Auburn University study found the following:
[O]ur updated analysis finds that one regulator costs the U.S. economy the equivalent of 138 private sector jobs per year. Each regulator costs the U.S. economy $11 million annually.
St. Onge’s estimate of $16.5 million per regulator was an inflation-adjusted update on that 2017 study.
All of which is to say that federal government regulation is completely out of control and needs to be slashed drastically to allow our economy to grow and thrive.
