A Devil’s Advocacy for Trump and Deregulation

I counted myself among those relatively few people that did not freak out upon the election of Donald Trump as President. I fought the urges every morning to think for a half a second I was in a bad episode of a bad sitcom, waking up in a country with a President Trump. I was perfectly willing to give him the first 100 days, just like I have given every President in my adult life. I let the Trump social media circus, the political equivalent to Juggalos, hoot and holler. I was going to be an adult, and wait to start criticizing when he started inevitably fucking things up. We all then saw how long it took for him to start fucking things up.
 
So, I made criticisms. There were fair criticisms, some less fair, some lightly profane, some that I would have said tiptoed so precariously close to the edge as to actually make me worry (had our President not seen the line, then dragged his balls over it while spouting conspiracy theories and various insults during the campaign), only to be reminded of the extremely tenuous relationship between Trump, his supporters, and facts and reality.
 
But that is not to say Trump has been a complete and total disaster. I mean, 99% is still pretty much complete and total disaster-range, but there is still that 1% that can actually be worked with.
 
The current frontrunner for best example is Trump’s edict that for every new regulation a federal agency proposes, they have to identify “at least two existing regulations to be repealed.” While still a little vague, at face value it is exactly what he says it is- the elimination of more regulations than we create. As one of many who has watched one Trump campaign promise after another crumple and die, screaming in the daylight, there is the apprehension of execution versus a three day tweetstorm explaining whoever else’s fault it was. As one of many who actually want that smaller government we keep talking out, this is a thin ray of sunlight breaking through the rubble.
 
Unfortunately, however, for every Trump supporter that has no connection with facts or reality, there seems to be one on the left of the spectrum that will equally disconnect from facts or reality as needed based on the mere notion that President Lying Orange Snack Food proposed it.
 
The facts and reality are simple. It is the extreme and onerous amounts of regulations that do more to strangle the business environment in the United States than the corporate tax rate, or banks not lending, or anything else. It is the added cost to businesses, particularly in manufacturing, that stifle investment, expansion, and hiring.
 
It is the smaller businesses that bear the brunt of the cost of dealing with regulations, and the fines that can accompany noncompliance. Those costs are what prevents hiring employees and expanding operations, if the business can even get off the ground to begin with. Think I’m kidding? Google up John Stossel on starting a lemonade stand in New York City, and get back with me.
 
There will be those who will breathlessly argue that a push for deregulation is tantamount to corporate welfare, that the Trump administration is doing nothing more than handing America over to big business. It may be a righteous contention, but it’s a contention that ignores that a good portion of that America will be handed back to small businesses, who have a bigger hand in this country that those automatically against big businesses or smaller government are willing to admit when the numbers aren’t in their favor.

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