LETTER: Let’s hope Donald Trump gets rid of unnecessary regulations

In his March 11 letter to the Review-Journal, Jim Cassidy writes in defense of the regulatory state that, “Every rule on every page is written because some polluter or other larcenous individual did something deceptive to endanger us.” Really? All 178,277 pages of the Federal Register are written for the sole protection of all the unsuspecting consumers and workers who would be endangered without them?

While some of these regulations may be necessary, Mr. Cassidy avoids the 97,100 rules and regulatory pages added in the last year of the Obama administration. And last year was not that exceptional with more than 780,000 pages added by Mr. Obama alone.

Add to those federal rules and regulations all the city, county and state mandates and we have a hugely burdensome regulatory process that is a real business killer. No wonder U.S. companies are having tremendous difficulty competing with foreign companies and American workers are losing their jobs.

I hope President Trump and the GOP Congress can reverse this trend and help the United States become more competitive. Deleting two existing regulations for every new one is a good start.