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Trump boasts of cutting 'the red tape of regulation'

By UPI Staff
President Donald Trump symbolically cut red tape on huge stack of government regulations while delivering remarks on his administration's attempts at deregulation in 2017 on Thursday. Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI
1 of 2 | President Donald Trump symbolically cut red tape on huge stack of government regulations while delivering remarks on his administration's attempts at deregulation in 2017 on Thursday. Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI | License Photo

Dec. 14 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Thursday afternoon touted his administration's effort to "cut the red tape of regulation."

Trump said agencies issued issued 67 deregulatory actions while imposing only three new regulatory actions after he made good on his campaign promise to deregulate by signing a directive that departments must eliminate two regulations for ever new regulation they create in January.

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"As a result, the never-ending growth of red tape in America has come to a sudden, screeching and beautiful halt," he said on Thursday.

Trump added the "ever-growing maze of regulations, rules, restrictions has cost our country trillions and trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, countless American factories, and devastated many industries."

He said federal agencies achieved $8.1 billion in lifetime net regulatory cost savings in 2017, the equivalent of $570 million per year.

Trump also said the administration surpassed its goal of adding "zero new regulatory costs onto the American economy" by "a lot" in its first 11 months.

"We blew our target out of the water," Trump said. "We canceled or delayed over 1,500 planned regulatory actions - more than any previous president by far."

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He said the results could be observed in the "record" level of the stock market, which he said created "$5 trillion in new wealth" as of three weeks ago and had likely approached $6 trillion by the time of his remarks.

Trump urged his Cabinet secretaries, agency heads and federal workers to cut more regulations in 2018 and criticized the state of regulations by unfurling a massive chart depicting the process necessary to get all of the permits needed for a highway or roadway project.

"It really explains what a disaster it is," Trump said. "We want to take that process down to maybe one year."

Trump concluded the remarks by cutting a ribbon representing the red tape connecting a stack of 20,000 pages of federal regulations which represented government regulations in 1960 and a 185,000-page pile representing regulation today.

"We're going to cut a ribbon because we're getting back below the 1960-level, and we'll be there fairly quickly," Trump said. "So together, let's cut the red tape. Let's set free our dreams. And, yes, let's make America great again."

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