WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday unveiled the third installment of his “agenda project” with a sweeping 57-page plan to roll back regulations on energy and the environment, labor issues and the financial services industry.
“The bureaucracy is not listening to the American people, and as a result less jobs, less businesses, less prosperity, lower wages,” Ryan said at an event in front of Labor Department headquarters. “We can improve the economy by making sure the regulators respect the people they’re supposed to regulate. That is not what’s happening.”
The plan commissioned by a task force named by Ryan, R-Wis., is largely a repackaging of GOP agenda items that have failed to advance through the Senate and have often been met with veto threats by President Barack Obama.
“Bad or unnecessary regulations can slow the economy down significantly, and the evidence suggests red tape is holding back the recovery,” said the report. “The federal government has taken very few outdated regulations off the books, while constantly adding new ones: 3,408 in 2015 alone.”
Tuesday’s report is the third of a half-dozen reports that are designed to form a positive GOP agenda for the fall campaign. But House Republicans are struggling to be heard above the din created by presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.