Among the high points of President Donald Trump's first administration was his push to rein in the administrative state and reduce the regulatory burden on businesses and individuals. The president seems to have carried his deregulatory instincts over to his second term, which is an encouraging sign. Unfortunately, he's also continued his taste for unilateral action, often carried out through executive orders. If that continues, it will be all too easy for future administrations to undo any gains.

You are reading The Rattler from J.D. Tuccille and Reason. Get more of J.D.'s commentary on government overreach and threats to everyday liberty.

The High Cost of Red Tape

Regulation isn't just an annoyance—it's a prosperity killer. At the end of 2024, the MetLife & U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index found that "51% of small businesses say navigating regulatory compliance requirements is negatively impacting their growth" and that "almost as many (47%) say their business spends too much time fulfilling regulatory compliance requirements."

With the affordability of housing a major concern, the National Association of Home Builders warns that "regulations account for nearly 25% of the cost of a single-family home."

It's encouraging to see a president attempt to reduce red tape.

Recovering From a Period of Record Rulemaking

"While Biden's 2024 Federal Register totaled 106,109 pages—the highest in history—the 2025 volume closed the year with 'only' 61,461 pages (adjusted for blanks and skips), the lowest seen since Trump's first-term tally of 61,067," reports the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Clyde Wayne Crews in an end-of-year analysis of the Trump administration's regulatory policies. "Both are levels otherwise not seen since 1993. Notably, 7,648 of those pages are attributable to Biden-era activity before Trump's inauguration."

True, the Federal Register is only a rough count of regulatory activity; there are other ways the government imposes red tape on the population. Also, the Administrative Procedure Act requires that a rule be issued to repeal a preexisting rule. Theoretically, you could fatten up the Federal Register with nothing but rule rescissions. But the page count is a good starting point for judging the general direction of regulatory activity.

On that point, Trump offers a real contrast to both his predecessor and his successor in the White House. Prior to the Biden administration, BallotPedia reports, "the Federal Register hit an all-time high of 95,894 pages in 2016" under the presidency of Barack Obama (the Law Librarians Society of Washington D.C. puts it at 97,110 pages). That was the first time it exceeded 90,000 pages. The Biden administration broke a new barrier when it exceeded 100,000 pages in 2024. Of course, the rules those pages represent, offset by whatever "unrules" (delays and rescission) are mixed in, accumulate year after year.

Crews comments that not only is the Federal Register page count down, but "final rule counts cratered to 2,441 in 2025. That is not only substantially down from Biden's 3,248 in 2024, it is the lowest total since recordkeeping began in the mid-1970s." Of the rules issued under Trump, 243 actually began life under Biden and many of the rules issued were unrules delaying or rescinding existing red tape.

Crews doesn't address the details of rules and rule rescissions issued during Trump's first year back in office. To wade further into the weeds, see the Brookings Institution, which notes: "As the Trump administration returns to office for a second term with renewed deregulatory ambitions, the executive branch and its agencies are implementing significant policy changes." Brookings maintains a regulatory tracker which "provides background information and status updates on a curated selection of significant regulatory and deregulatory changes made by the Trump administration."

So, it looks like the second Trump administration is off to a decent start in keeping its January 2025 promise "to promote prudent financial management and alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens" by ensuring that "for each new regulation issued, at least 10 prior regulations be identified for elimination."

Missed Opportunities During Trump's First Term

Trump's first term made similar commitments as reviewed in 2020 for the Cato Institute by Keith B. Belton and John D. Graham. They concluded the flow of new regulations was much smaller compared to previous administrations and that the administration was somewhat effective in working with Congress to enact deregulation through legislation. But "Trump's effectiveness as a deregulator has been hampered by a lack of political appointees in key regulatory agencies and a skeptical judicial branch dominated by judges appointed under Democratic administrations."

Among the challenges the first Trump administration faced, Belton and Graham noted, was that by leaving many executive branch offices unfilled, the management of agencies and the enactment of the administration's policies was left in the hands of career staff who didn't necessarily agree with the deregulatory program: "Without the assistance of agency career staff, it is unlikely that deregulatory rulemakings will be completed in a judicially defensible manner."

The second Trump administration has made better progress filling key offices. That should help with implementing a deregulatory agenda. But if it remains a matter of enacting memos from the boss, that leaves regulatory reform to be undone by a future president.

Congress Needs To Get Involved in Reducing Red Tape

CEI's Crews warns that Trump's deregulatory achievements remain vulnerable in the current term: "Trump 2.0 has leaned heavily on executive orders (225 in all) to reverse Biden's politicized mandates on climate, DEI, financial disclosure, labor, energy, and more. But regulatory restraint that relies on presidential discretion is fragile, since executive orders can usually (though not always) be rescinded as easily as they are issued."

"The real test ahead is whether deregulation will be made durable by Congress or be left to the whims of the executive officeholder," Crews emphasizes. "Unfortunately for the Trump project, meaningful reform requires more than freezes and ratios. Congress needs to make the 'Unrules project' permanent, and to end the laundering of regulation by means other than the conventional rules featured in this roundup."

At a time when the regulatory burden in the United States is hampering businesses and raising costs for Americans, Trump and his team have emphasized cutting red tape and setting the economy free. They've made a good start in that direction with a greatly reduced volume of regulations. But a lasting deregulatory legacy requires getting Congress on board so that reform can be enacted into law and put beyond the whims of presidents to come.