President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes $100 million for the Office of Management and Budget “to pay expenses associated with improving regulatory processes and analyzing and reviewing rules.”
Following the Department of Government Efficiency initiative, this small investment won’t make many headlines — but it should. If that money is put to use in the way several states have done to reduce built-up red tape, the return on investment will make even the crankiest budget hawk crack a smile.
A recent Council of Economic Advisers report found that just a modest portion of the president’s deregulatory agenda could save the nation some $907 billion. Californians, who live in America’s most-regulated state, understand these costs better than most.
Take housing, for example. California’s thriving economy and broad appeal are a recipe for expensive homes, but its famously stringent building and other restrictions create something else: enough scarcity to propel home prices to around 2.5 times the national median. The costs extend further than the sticker price. They make it harder to rebuild after a natural disaster. They send workers and employers fleeing for other states or far-flung areas.
This is all about moving too slowly to streamline an entire system that fails millions of people. Federal officials now have resources and a mandate to identify failures in the federal code — the question is “how?”