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Barack Obama in 2008. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

This was a great week for conservatism.

I know, I know. That word as it has been reverse engineered by the modern GOP no longer means in America what it once meant across the West, and I should probably stop pretending otherwise. Im told repeatedly, and understandably, that my support for the long Anglo-American tradition of conservative political thought is quixotic, perverse, and largely counterproductive. Pragmatism, moderation, incrementalism, reform: These might be conservative virtues in principle, but in practice, the American right junked them years ago. Im told I should admit that, in the current American context, Im a de facto, Obama-loving leftist. To cheer the collapse of the brutal repeal of Obamacare has not an inkling of conservatism about it.

So let me explain a little why I found this past week so encouraging. It represented, in my view, the triumph of reality over ideology. And conservatism from Burke and Hume to Hayek and Oakeshott has always been, at its core, a critique of ideology in favor of reality. The world is as it is, the conservative argues. Any attempt to drastically overhaul it, to impose a utopian vision onto a messy, evolving human landscape will not just fail, it will likely make things worse. To pretend that the present exists for no good reason and can be repealed or transformed in an instant is a formula for ruin. The leftist vision of perfect social justice is therefore as illusory and as pernicious as the reactionarys dream of restoring a mythical past. And the great virtue of Americas deeply conservative Constitution is that it throws so many obstacles in the way of radical, ideological change to the left or right that it limits the harm that humans can do to themselves in moments of passion or certainty or in search of ideological perfection.

The utopia the GOP wanted was to return health care to the free market, where choice would be maximized and costs curtailed by consumers. You can see the ideological appeal. But health care is a product unlike any other, and that freewheeling vision had already been decisively rejected by a majority of Americans. Obamacare itself was, in fact, a response to that shift in opinion and the president was reelected after passing it. The personal bankruptcies, the soaring costs of treating the uninsured and very sick, the impossibility of getting insured with a preexisting condition: A huge majority hated that status quo ante. In the end, there was no going back.

And morally, American culture had already dispensed with the cruelty of allowing our fellow citizens to suffer and die because of a lack of resources. Ronald Reagan was in some ways the first to concede this. In 1986, he signed the law that made it illegal for hospitals to turn away the very sick if they could not pay for treatment. Once that core concession was made by the icon of the conservative movement that the sick should always be treatedin extremis the logic of universal coverage was unstoppable.

And if universal coverage was unstoppable, the most conservative response to that change was something very much like Obamacare. It was an incremental reform, it kept the private insurance market, and it attempted to create as big a risk pool as possible. No one argued it was perfect. But it adapted ideas from left and right into a plausible, workable synthesis. And yet the GOP still fixated on abstract ideology pretended none of this had happened. Caught in the vortex of their own talk-radio fantasies, they opted to repeal and replace 21st-century reality. And surprise! reality won.

Maybe if theyd made a case that this was essential unless we wanted the country to go bankrupt, they might have had a chance. But when they combined it with massive tax cuts for the rich, they were never going to win, except by diktat. So they tried diktat. They lied about their bill; they attempted to ram it through quickly; they suppressed public hearings and any semblance of a deliberative process; they all but ended senatorial debate; they made no compelling public case for the bill (because there was none); they passed it in the House before even scoring it; they tried to force it through by a reconciliation process that was never designed for such a thing.

They tried everything, in other words led by one of the wiliest Senate Majority Leaders in modern times, and a president with a cultlike hold on his own voters. They controlled the House and Senate and had a chief executive willing to sign literally anything he could call a victory. And they still failed. Rejoice!

Obama, in fact, was the conservative in all this nudging and amending, shaping and finessing as American society evolved while the GOP flamed out in a reactionary dead end. But Obamas conservatism has nonetheless brought about an epochal, defining achievement for American liberalism: a robust American consensus in favor of universal health insurance. Yes, he could.

It is hard to overstate the salience of this victory in Obamas long, long game and perhaps we are still too close to events to see it as clearly as we should. But here it is: a testament to the skills and vision and tenacity of our greatest living president, whose political shadow completely eclipses the monstrous, ridiculous fool who succeeded him. Like the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, weve seen this story many times before in the last eight and a half years. And we also know the ending.

Meep, meep.

Speaking of ideology versus reality, there is, it seems to me, a parallel on the left. That is the current attempt to deny the profound natural differences between men and women, and to assert, with a straight and usually angry face, that gender is in no way rooted in sex, and that sex is in no way rooted in biology. This unscientific product of misandrist feminism and confused transgenderism is striding through the culture, and close to no one in the elite is prepared to resist it.

And so we have the establishment of gender-neutral birth certificates in Canada; and, in England, that lovely old phrase, Ladies and Gentlemen, is being removed from announcements on the Tube, for fear someone might feel left out. We have dozens of new pronouns in colleges (for all those genders that have suddenly sprung into existence), and biological males competing in all-female high-school athletic teams (guess who wins at track). We also have irreversible genital alteration for minors, who believe, as many kids often have, that they are girls in boys bodies and vice versa. We have elections about who gets to go to which bathroom.

Worse, we have constant admonitions against those who actually conform, as most human beings always have, to the general gender rule. Boys who behave like boys have always behaved are suddenly displaying toxic masculinity and must be reprogrammed from the get-go. Girls who like pink and play with Barbies are somehow not fully female until theyve seen the recent Wonder Woman movie or absorbed the stunning and brave decision to make Doctor Who a woman. We have gone from rightly defending the minority to wrongly problematizing the majority. It should surprise no one that, at some point, the majority will find all of this, as Josh Barro recently explained, annoying.

I say this as someone happily in the minority and who believes strongly in the right to subvert or adapt traditional gender roles. Its a free country, after all. But you cant subvert something that you simultaneously argue doesnt exist. And this strikes me as the core contradiction of ideological transgenderism. By severing the link between sex and gender completely, it abolishes the core natural framework without which the transgender experience makes no sense at all. Its also a subtle, if unintentional, attack on homosexuality. Most homosexuals are strongly attached to their own gender and attracted to traditional, natural expressions of it. Thats what makes us gay, for heavens sake. And thats one reason the entire notion of a common LGBT identity is so misleading. How can a single identity comprise both the abolition of gender and at the same time its celebration?

Exceptions, in other words, need a rule to exist. Abolish genders roots in biology and sex and you abolish gay people and transgender people as well. Yes, theres a range of gender expression among those of the same sex. But its still tethered among most to the forces of chromosomes and hormones that make us irreducibly male and female. Nature can be interpreted; it can even be played with; but it cannot be abolished. After all, how can you be queer if there is no such thing as normal?

Transgender people exist and should be treated with absolutely the same human respect, decency, and civil equality as anyone else. But they dont disprove traditional notions of gender as such which have existed in all times, places, and cultures in human history and prehistory, and are rooted deeply in evolutionary biology and reproductive strategy. Intersex people exist and, in my view, should not be genitally altered or fixed without their adult consent. But they do not somehow negate the overwhelming majority who have no such gender or sexual ambiguity. Gay people exist and should not be coerced into behaving in ways they find alien to their being. But the entire society does not need to be overhauled in order to make gay or trans experience central to it. Inclusion, yes. Revolution, no.

The added problem with this war on nature is the backlash it inevitably incurs. Theres a reason so many working-class men find it hard to vote for Democrats any more. And theres a reason why a majority of white women last year voted for a man who boasted of sexual assault if the alternative was a triumph for contemporary left-feminism. You cant assault the core identity of most peoples lives and then expect them to vote for you. As a Trump supporter in Colorado just told a reporter from The New Yorker:Ive never been this emotionally invested in a political leader in my life. The more they hate him, the more I want him to succeed. Because what they hate about him is what they hate about me.And one of the core things that liberals hate about Trump voters is their expression of their gender.

One of the features you most associate with creeping authoritarianism is the criminalization of certain political positions. Is anything more anathema to a liberal democracy? If Trump were to suggest it, can you imagine the reaction?

And yet its apparently fine with a hefty plurality of the Senate and House. Im referring to the remarkable bill introduced into the Congress earlier this year with 237 sponsors and co-sponsors in the House and 43 in the Senate which the ACLU and the Intercept have just brought to light. Its a remarkably bipartisan effort, backed by Chuck Schumer and Ted Cruz, among many solid Trump-resisting Democrats and hard-line Republicans. And it would actually impose civil and criminal penalties on American citizens for backing or joining any international boycott of Israel because of its settlement activities. There are even penalties for simply inquiring about such a boycott. And theyre not messing around. The minimum civil penalty would be $250,000 and the maximum criminal penalty $1 million and 20 years in prison. Up to 20 years in prison for opposing the policies of a foreign government and doing something about it! And, yes, the Senate Minority Leader is leading the charge.

Look: Im not in favor of boycotting Israel when we dont boycott, say, Saudi Arabia. But seriously: making it illegal? Every now and again, you just have to sit back and admire the extraordinary skills of the Greater Israel lobby. Youve never heard of this bill, and I hadnt either. But that is partly the point. AIPAC doesnt want the attention writers who notice this attempted assault on a free society will be tarred as anti-Semites (go ahead, it wouldnt be the first time) and politicians who resist it will see their careers suddenly stalled. I doubt a single sponsor of this bill will go on the record to oppose it (so far, none has). Thats how complete the grip of AIPAC is. And pointing out this special interests distortion of democracy is not the equivalent of bigotry. Its simply a defense of our democratic way of life.

See you next Friday.

By excluding from Trumpcare indispensable features, the Senate parliamentarian has probably killed the bill unless McConnell nukes her rulings.

Like so many other media entities, Vice is making a stronger push into video.

Everybody is making the same dumb joke about Trumps new communications director.

U.S. passports used to travel to North Korea will soon be invalidated by the government.

Anthony Scaramucci doesnt seem concerned about all his old tweets.

The former White House press secretary was a glutton for punishment, and now hes gone.

At a time when the White House could benefit from a steady, respected hand to run the communications shop, Trump went in a very different direction.

Donald Trumps new communications director is a hedge-fund manager with a particularly crude nickname for Reince Priebus.

Hes finally had enough.

Farewell, Spicey.

Doug Elmendorf, who oversaw the CBO during the battle over Obamacare, on how the agency operates.

McConnell doesnt have the votes to pass any version of it. But, in theory, he does have an incredibly narrow path to success.

A car on a southbound Q train jumped the rails near Brighton Beach in Brooklyn.

The supermarket tabloid, run by a personal friend of Trumps, isnt the only media outlet turning its attention to the former secretary of State.

He (and it was mostly guys) could have been among the 175 hopefuls that showed up for open auditions at the Barclays Center on Tuesday.

The failure of the Republican health-care overhaul is a testament to Obamas skills, vision, and tenacity.

His family apologized for dropping his name several months ago.

His first White House job offer fell through, but now hes up for an even bigger gig possibly because no one consulted Reince Priebus.

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The Triumph of Obama's Long Game - New York Magazine

President Barack Obama and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, right, walk along the Colonnade of the White House on Nov. 14, 2016. | AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

A senior official from the administration of Barack Obama defended the former presidents handling of Russian efforts to interfere in last years presidential election, which current President Donald Trump has at times characterized as negligent or worse.

Seeking to set the record straight about the events of last fall, Denis McDonough, Obamas chief of staff from 2013 until he left office earlier this year, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Thursday night that the former president worked with his own intelligence community as well as leaders in Congress to protect not just the integrity of last Novembers election but also the publics confidence in it.

Story Continued Below

Obama also directed the intelligence community to seek out and make public as much evidence of Russias culpability as possible, McDonough said. On two occasions, the former chief of staff said, Russia was warned directly about the consequences of continued efforts to interfere in the U.S. election: once in early October directly from Obama to Putin and again later that month via the Russian embassy in Washington.

We believe that these direct warnings in fact caused the Russians to dial back their efforts to interfere, McDonough said.

And while the government first made public its assessment that Russia was behind the campaign of election-year cyberattacks, internal government movements on it began much earlier, according to McDonough. Briefings for Congressional leaders began in August and continued throughout the month. The president also invited the majority and minority leaders from both houses of Congress to the White House to ask them to release a bipartisan statement of concern on the election interference efforts, McDonough said.

Such a statement was intended to help insulate the White Houses efforts from appearing partisan, McDonough said. With the same goal in mind, he recalled the White House asking two Democrats not to release a public statement on the Russian cyberattacks.

Despite McDonoughs assertions published Thursday, as well as past statements from other Obama administration officials, Trump and his defenders have insisted that his predecessor did not do enough in the moment to stop the Kremlins efforts to affect the election. At least one Obama official, quoted anonymously in a Post story published last month, agreed, telling a reported that I feel like we sort of choked in responding to Moscows activities.

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Trump himself has said that Obama was unwilling to more forcefully address Russias efforts because he was fearful of rocking the boat in what, for almost all of last fall, appeared was going to be an easy victory for Democrat Hillary Clinton. It was only after Trumps surprise victory that the issue became a ready excuse for embarrassed Democrats, the president has argued.

In his op-ed, McDonough called on Trump to take a firmer stance against Russia and follow through on the work began by Obama to more forcefully respond to the Kremlin. Those steps, the former chief of staff said, should ensure that renewed efforts by Russia will not succeed.

Russia poses a threat to our democracy. Yet the past several months have also seen too much denial, finger-pointing and partisan posturing on this issue, he wrote.

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Denis McDonough defends Obama's Russia hacking response in op-ed - Politico

Michelle Obama and Beyonc have never kept their mutual appreciation a secret. The two have been friends for almost a decade. It started when Beyonc attended President Obamas inauguration with her husband, Jay-Z, in 2008, and later serenaded the new first couple with a rendition of Etta Jamess At Last. Over the years, the two continued to grow closer, collaborating on several causes (including the First Ladys Lets Move campaign against childhood obesity), and even bringing their families together at Camp David. And while we knew these two powerhouses were friends, it was hard to picture them just casually hanging out together (their schedules alone must have made it close to impossible). Thankfully, this morning, fan group the Beehive released a short clip on Twitter showing Obama, Beyonc, and Solange doing just that at the superstars birthday party last year. Who knew a video of Bey and Michelle saying Bye, Felicia could be so satisfying?

Beyonc Made a Video at the September Issue Cover Shoot:

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Now There's Video Proof That Michelle Obama and Beyonc Hang Out Together - Vogue.com

The White Houses Office of Management and Budget detailed Thursday how it would jettison hundreds of existing or planned regulations as part of its larger push to ease federal restrictions on the private sector, upending federal policies on labor, the environment and public health.

The list, issued as part of a semiannual report on the entire governments regulatory agenda, shows the extent to which this administration is determined to erase many of the Obama administrations policy priorities. In several instances, the administration is dropping rules aimed at tightening worker safety standards or omitting species the government had pledged to protect under the Endangered Species Act. In other cases, it is proposing new regulations that provide employers with more leeway in how they run their businesses or report their activities to federal officials.

The Trump administration said it was pulling or suspending 860 pending regulations. Of those, 469 were being completely withdrawn. Another 391 were being set aside or reevaluated. These proposed regulations could be revisited at some point or dropped altogether.

The rules the administration targeted govern everything from the basics of everyday living, such as a product safety standard for mattresses flammability when it comes to cigarettes, to what sort of precautions construction firms should be required to take so their workers are not run over by other vehicles on site.

I cannot express to you enough how much things have changed when it comes to the regulatory burden, the attitudes towards regulations, in this country, and you are just going to see more of that for the next eight years, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday. Our philosophy has been that the previous administration fudged the numbers that they either overstated the benefits to people or understated the costs and we are going to look at it in a much more pragmatic perspective.

Consumer and worker advocates countered that Trump officials were scrapping critical government safeguards, and the implications of these actions could ripple across the country for years.

These rollbacks of critical public protections will leave American workers, consumers and children vulnerable on a daily basis, said Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate for Public Citizens Congress Watch division, to risks such as air and water pollution, unsafe products and tainted food, dangerous workplaces and a newly deregulated Wall Street that once again could threaten economic collapse.

[Trump undertakes the most ambitious regulatory rollback since Reagan]

President Trump has promised to eliminate 80percent of all federal regulations, arguing that the plethora of rules is harming economic growth and making it harder for companies to create more jobs.

But OMB officials have suggested that could be very difficult to achieve because many regulations are written to enforce congressionally authorized laws, and the White House cannot unilaterally remove them.

Susan Dudley, who directs George Washington Universitys Regulatory Studies Center, said in an interview that the agenda does signify a slower pace of new regulatory actions, although it was too early to know whether officials would follow through on their pledge to eliminate two regulations for every new one they propose, and ensure these actions did not add to the federal deficit.

Still, the White Houses updated regulatory agenda on Thursday shows that it is taking steps to freeze, slow or remove many pending regulations, some of which have been in the works and at times, languishing for years. For example, one proposal that the Trump administration is suspending would have created new standards for the way meat and poultry products are processed. That rule was first proposed in 2001.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist and former Congressional Budget Office director, said in an interview that at the end of Obamas second term there was a lot of overreach as it finalized a slew of rules, and the new administration is taking corrective action. Holtz-Eakin cited a recent study by the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank, which estimated that the previous administrations regulations imposed a cumulative burden of $890billion in compliance costs.

Theres no question the Obama administration went too far, Holtz-Eakin said. The notion that you should stop and reexamine things is perfectly sensible.

Manufacturers have also hailed these moves: In the National Association of Manufacturers most recent survey of its members, 80percent say that Trumps actions on regulation are headed in the right direction.

Raj Nayak, the National Employment Law Projects director of research, said in an interview that the regulatory rollbacks touted in the new agenda have a consistent theme. They are deemphasizing the projects that help workers, said Nayak, who served as deputy chief of staff to Obamas second labor secretary, Tom Perez.

The administration has touted several regulatory changes already, including the Environmental Protection Agencys move to repeal a sweeping rule governing what water bodies qualify for federal protection and one limiting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.

EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said the agencys move to withdraw 25 separate regulations reflects the administrations commitment to refocusing the agency on our core mission of protecting the nations air, water and land while reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens on Americans.

And in late March, the Energy Department withdrew proposed regulations designed to make products more energy efficient. The regulations concerned gas-fired indoor or outdoor fireplaces, natural gas compressors and computers.

The list the White House issued Thursday was notable for what it said about its plans to address lower-profile measures that govern the operations of businesses and other regulated entities.

Mulvaney noted that many of these federal requirements often escape public notice: None of them are very sexy, none of them are very glamorous, none of them really rise to the level of getting national attention.

[EPA rules emerge as major target after administration solicits industry input]

But they often have major implications for how companies operate and what sort of federal enforcement actions they will face.

The Labor Department, for example, removed from its long-term agenda a proposal to stiffen exposure standards for styrene, a chemical used in plastics that has been identified as a carcinogen, and 1-bromopropane, a chemical solvent that is a neurotoxin. It is also jettisoning plans to change permissible exposure limits for some substances that were set in 1971.

In a 2011 letter to the department, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote that given the fact that the permissible exposure limits were set four decades ago, they do not reflect current technology or contemporary understandings of exposure levels and should be updated.

Clearly, what this administration is saying is that no further work will be done on health standards, said David Michaels, who headed Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration under Obama and now serves as a public health professor at George Washington Universitys Milken Institute School of Public Health.

Labor Department spokesman Michael Trupo said department officials are not commenting beyond what is in the agenda.

In a major win for restaurateurs, Labor indicated Thursday it would reverse an Obama-era rule that prohibited them from sharing some of the tips that servers earning the full minimum wage received with other employees, such as cooks and dishwashers. The National Restaurant Association had challenged the 2011 rule, and there had been conflicting rulings from the 9th and 10th Circuit on whether the regulation was legal.

Angelo Amador, executive director of the associations Restaurant Law Center, described the move as a reaction to the years of litigation, noting that the rule had been stayed since 2013.

Amador said that confining tips to just servers creates a disparity between them and those in the back of the house washing dishes and preparing the meal. Theyre all working towards the same goal, he said. If your food is burned or your plates are dirty, you might not get a good tip.

But Nayak argued that by allowing the employer to pool tips, Its essentially subsidizing wages that the restaurant should pay. Fundamentally, the employer should not be taking a portion of the tips.

And while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to designate protections for several species under the Endangered Species Act by Sept.30, nearly a dozen of these measures are missing from OMBs agenda. Federal officials are under court order to determine whether to list the Kirtlands snake, a rare and secretive reptile in the Midwest, but there is no mention of the species in the document.

Many of these species are highly imperiled and need all the protection they can get, said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group.

Abby Phillip and Chris Mooney contributed to this report.

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Trump administration cancels hundreds of Obama-era regulations - Washington Post

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney accused the Obama administration Thursday of keeping a secret list of proposed regulations during Mr. Obamas eight-year regulatory onslaught against businesses, and touted President Trumps rollback of more than 800 Obama-era rules and proposals.

Of the 860 rules or proposed rules that the Trump administration has killed, 179 came from what he called Mr. Obamas secret list. As Trump aides combed through the books, they found pending proposals that included rules on hardwood plywood research and new requirements for contamination control in cattle slaughter operations.

They had a bunch of things that they wanted to regulate, Mr. Mulvaney said of the Obama administrations first term. They just didnt want to tell you about it. They thought it would be bad for their re-election prospects in 2012, so they created a secret list of regs that were not disclosed to you folks. We are disclosing it.

When Trump officials threatened to disclose the list, Mr. Mulvaney said, bureaucrats in various Cabinet agencies came up with those 860 things that we got rid of.

There will be no more of that, said the Office of Management and Budget director. We will not have a secret list. We will not have a hidden list of regulations that were thinking about doing but were not going to tell you about. Thats going to end effective immediately. In fact, it already has ended.

Cass Sunstein, who headed Mr. Obamas office of regulatory affairs in his first term, did not respond to a request for comment.

Even as the Trump administration was accusing its predecessor of a hidden agenda, a government watchdog group faulted the Trump White House for acting with unprecedented secrecy in its first six months.

Our conclusion on the Trump administrations record on open government at six months is inescapable: This is a secretive administration, allergic to transparency, ethically compromised and hostile to the essential role that journalism plays in a democracy, said a report by the Sunlight Foundation.

During Mr. Trumps first six months in office, he has eliminated 16 major regulations that had cost businesses at least $100 million per year each. He has introduced only one major regulation, pertaining to mercury in wastewater.

At a White House event to showcase advances in U.S. pharmaceutical packaging, Mr. Trump said the drug industry and patients will soon benefit from fewer regulations at the Food and Drug Administration.

Amazing things are happening there, and I think were going to be announcing some of them over the next two months, the president said. Were going to be streamlining, as we have in other industries, regulations so that advancements can reach patients quickly.

A recent study by the conservative American Action Forum found that Mr. Trump has released 8 percent of the historical average of rules issued by Presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Clinton.

Holding up a stack of paper of Obama regulations with both hands, Mr. Mulvaney challenged reporters at the White House, Were you healthy and safe before this came out? Yes. And youll be healthy and safe when its gone.

Cutting regulations is a pillar of Mr. Trumps economic program as he seeks to return the U.S. economy to an annual growth rate of 3 percent or more, a number that hasnt been reached in 10 years.

Federal agencies under Mr. Trump have withdrawn 469 proposed regulations from a report last fall under Mr. Obama. Another 391 proposed regulations have been delayed for further evaluation.

Trump officials said the Obama administration introduced rules in the last six months of 2016 that would have imposed $6.8 billion in annual costs on the economy, while the new rules during Mr. Trumps first five months have imposed no costs.

We had zero, Mr. Mulvaney said.

He said the previous administration often fudged the numbers when it proposed regulations.

They either overstated the benefit or understated the cost, Mr. Mulvaney said.

When Mr. Trump took office, he issued a two-for-one directive to set the tone of his war on regulation: For every proposed regulation, two others were to be cut.

The regulatory rollback has provided Mr. Trump with one of his smoothest areas of cooperation with congressional Republicans, who aided the push early in his term by deploying the seldom-used Congressional Review Act to repeal Obama-era rules.

Weve seen the largest regulatory rollback since Ronald Reagan, and theres much more to come, said Sen. David Perdue, Georgia Republican.

Among Mr. Trumps future easing of regulations, the Interior Department plans to reduce paperwork for outdoorsmen and fish restoration programs, and the Labor Department is planning to streamline the approval process for new apprenticeship programs.

Mr. Mulvaney said most of the actions are not headline-grabbing but the impact of cutting red tape improves the business climate and the lives of average Americans.

None of them are very sexy, he said of the 860 rules. I describe them as a slow cancer that can come from regulatory burdens that we put on our people. Its not going to change the world, but when you do that 860 times in the first six months, it can have a benefit.

The conservative Competitiveness Enterprise Institute predicted this week that Mr. Trump would cut red tape this year on a significant scale. The group said that under Mr. Obama, typically 97,000 pages were printed annually in the Federal Register, a level that is likely to be cut by a third under Mr. Trump.

Regulatory analyst Clyde Wayne Crews at CEI said this week that regulatory compliance costs about $2 trillion annually and that some regulations he calls regulatory dark matter are imposed without adequate public review.

Federal requirements of publishing a notice of proposed rule-making and allowing public comment do not apply to interpretative rules, general statements of policy, or rules of agency organization, procedure or practice, Mr. Crews said in a blog post. Further, most regulations costs and benefits are unknown. Regulatory dark matter such as agency and presidential memoranda, guidance documents, notices, bulletins, directives, news releases, letters and even blog posts may enact or influence policy while flouting the [federal] public notice and comment requirements for legislative rules.

Mr. Mulvaney said cutting red tape is urgently needed to make economic growth of 3 percent sustainable.

Our fear is that if we dont get back there quickly, there will be people who never know what 3 percent means, he said. And I dont think it should come as a surprise that there are some people who dont want you to remember what 3 percent growth would be like because it would be a tremendous sort of damnation of what happened in the previous administration.

Read more:
Trump axes 860 Obama regulations, 179 from 'secret' list - Washington Times