Mitt Romney will treat regulatory costs like other costs: he will establish firm limits for them. A Romney administration will act swiftly to tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed on the economy. It will also seek to make structural changes to the federal bureaucracy that ensure economic growth remains front and center when regulatory decisions are made.

Eliminate Undue Economic Burdens

One of the greatest problems with the federal bureaucracy is that each incoming presidential administration leaves in place much of what its predecessor constructed. The result is layer upon layer of often unnecessary or inconsistent regulation. President Obama has compounded this problem with unprecedented federal power grabs over wide swaths of the economy. Obama-era laws and regulations must be rolled back, and pre-existing ones must be carefully scrutinized.

• Repeal Obamacare


• Repeal Dodd-Frank and replace with streamlined, modern regulatory framework


• Amend Sarbanes-Oxley to relieve mid-size companies from onerous requirements


• Initiate review and elimination of all Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy

Reform Environmental Regulation

As president, Mitt Romney will eliminate the regulations promulgated in pursuit of the Obama administration’s costly and ineffective anti-carbon agenda. Romney will also press Congress to reform our environmental laws to ensure that they allow for a proper assessment of their costs.

• Ensure that environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process


• Provide multi-year lead times before companies must come into compliance with onerous new environmental regulations

Adopt Structural Reforms

An agency may be able to conceive of ten different regulations, each imposing costs of $10 billion while producing at least as much in social benefit. Moving forward might sound like a great idea to the typical regulator. But imposing those regulations, no matter what the social benefits, has a similar effect to raising taxes by $100 billion. Regulatory costs need to be treated like the very real costs they are.

• Impose a regulatory cap of zero dollars on all federal agencies


• Require congressional approval of all new “major” regulations


• Reform legal liability system to prevent spurious litigation