The single most important pro-growth policy change in the “Big, Beautiful Bill” may not be in the tax title House Ways and Means has been working on, but in the work of the House Judiciary Committee, which has included a version of the REINS Act in its section of the bill.
Federal regulation now nearly rivals taxation as a burden on the U.S. economy, totaling north of $3 trillion per year. Recent Democratic administrations have stretched decades-old laws to within inches of their breaking points to impose vast costs, with Biden setting a new world record of about $47,000 per family in new regulatory costs during his four-year term. Much of that has already been reversed by President Trump – but absent a legislative fix, it can snap back into place, and more, as soon as a Democrat is back in the White House.
The REINS Act would stop the swinging of this exorbitant regulatory pendulum by fixing the Congressional Review Act’s fundamental design flaw. Right now, even if Congress votes to overturn a harmful regulation, a sitting president can veto it and keep the rule in place. This fix flips the default.
Going forward, any regulation with a budgetary impact would require affirmative approval from both the House and Senate before it could take effect. The language is similar to the note Tea Party activist Lloyd Rogers handed to then-Congressman Geoff Davis back in 2010, when the REINS Act was invented.
Congress is more than capable of approving stupid regulations, of course, but this system would put a critical check on the process and would likely stop most of the worst and most destructive regulations. At a minimum, when bad rules and regulations do pass, voters would know who to hold responsible on election day.
This is precisely the legislative process the Constitution describes – regulations significant enough to have an impact on the federal budget would be treated like laws, and would require majority approval of the House and Senate and a presidential signature or a veto-override before they could take effect.
This would unleash economic growth and likely slash the federal deficit by as much as $1 trillion over the next decade, according to research from Heritage Foundation. Democrats will be hard-pressed to argue that deficit reduction on that order of magnitude is not germane to a budget reconciliation package, which will procedurally protect it from filibuster.
I asked President Donald Trump about the REINS concept in 2015, when I surveyed the presidential field on the issue.
“I will sign the REINS Act should it reach my desk as president and more importantly I will work hard to get it passed,” Trump responded. “The monstrosity that is the federal government with its pages and pages of rules and regulations has been a disaster for the American economy and job growth. The REINS Act is one major step toward getting our government under control.”
And, I would add, keeping it under control after President Trump has left office.
The REINS Act has passed the House many times but never the Senate. Including it in this year’s reconciliation package is a brilliant move by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to get it over the line. It deserves the strong support of every member of Congress who is up to the job of actually voting on major regulations. And anybody not up to that job should probably seek other employment.
Phil Kerpen is the president of American Commitment and the author of “Democracy Denied.” His column is distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
