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Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

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Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#131

Post by dharmon »

rayiner wrote: post #105
dharmon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knows how many outdated regulations are still on the books? It seems the thing to do would be hire interns to start scouring for every "A married woman shall not chop down a birchwood tree on the day of her wedding while wearing her bridal gown" style law. If this idea persisted for 50 years maybe they'd have to start repealing actual relevant regulations.

I'd actually be surprised if there were many of those. Regulations are constantly being codified into the Code of Federal Regulations. It's about 175,000 pages. It's printed at about 55 lines per page, which makes it about 10 million lines. About the same size as the Linux kernel. That's big, but it's not "we don't even know what's in here" big.

Cool. Thanks for the info.

I just assumed that over 250 years some cruft was inevitable.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#132

Post by jjoonathan »

burkaman wrote: post #121
semiel wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. Canada has a variation on this law. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/R-4.5/page-1.html#h-...

And this law actually started in British Columbia as "repeal 2 for every new regulation". It does seem like it could be useful as a short term policy, if Congress can't find any way to agree on directly repealing unnecessary regulations.

Don't worry, if they can't make up their minds I'm sure plenty of bright, helpful, and well-dressed citizens will come out of the woodwork to advise them as to which regulations aren't needed anymore.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#133

Post by pnathan »

geofft wrote: post #31

I'm worried about 18F/USDS/etc. because of the freeze on federal hiring. Partly I have friends there, but mostly, those organizations need to exist if government is going to be effective. They're getting things done, and they're also taking business away from government contractors who don't get things done (i.e., saving significant taxpayer money).

A popular approach from many is to make government ineffective. Not joking. It's at the crux of Republican proposals for 8-12 years.

Then, add to that the fact that these people are ensuring the big pigs don't get to eat at the trough? Yeah, not looking good.

I think I would be looking for a private gig right now if I were in 18F/USDS.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#134

Post by burkaman »

dragthor wrote: post #77
thetrb wrote: post #32

There's a lot of really scary stuff in there: - Cancel payments to U.N. climate change projects - Remove two existing regulations for every new regulation - Drastic tax cuts - Massive immigration changes

- Cancel UN climate payments, use money instead on America water and environmental issues. Sounds good to me. Let China and India clean up their own mess, while we clean up our messes. - Yes. Too many regulations by unelected bureaucrats. Sounds good to me. I'd rather have one clear and meaningful regulation than two "up for random interpretation." - Yes. Tax cuts for all working people. Let people decide what to do…

> Let China and India clean up their own mess, while we clean up our messes.

But China and India are on the same planet as us.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#136

Post by badestrand »

ninjakeyboard wrote: post #84

Leave nafta? There doesn't seem to be a very thorough analysis on the effect of this.... You can't just make changes to economic policy and hope for the best - there are far and wide impacts to making changes like this.

There are several drastic terms like that, e.g. "Cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back.". When entering negotiations with such a threat you will get what you want, he will be able to easily dictate changes to NAFTA and every country will take their people back. I am not even sure this is such a bad strategy.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#137

Post by MichaelBurge »

GVIrish wrote: post #118
dragthor wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Cancel UN climate payments, use money instead on America water and environmental issues. Sounds good to me. Let China and India clean up their own mess, while we clean up our messes. - Yes. Too many regulations by unelected bureaucrats. Sounds good to me. I'd rather have one clear and meaningful regulation than two "up for random interpretation." - Yes. Tax cuts for all working people. Let people decide what to do…

> Tax cuts for all working people. Let people decide what to do with their own money (spend, save, donate, etc.). The bigger the government, the smaller the individual. Tax cuts are all well and good in a vacuum, but how are we realistically going to pay down the national debt when we enact a massive tax cut on top of a tax rate that is already at historically low levels? Some people say we can cut all of this govern…

Medicare and Social Security are funded through their own dedicated payroll tax, not the general income tax. Roosevelt intentionally did it this way to make it impossible to repeal.

My working assumption is that the military is mismanaged, and spends trillions of dollars on wasteful projects. I think you can get a pretty big tax cut by just managing the military better.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#138

Post by dragonwriter »

burkaman wrote: post #121
semiel wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. Canada has a variation on this law. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/R-4.5/page-1.html#h-...

And this law actually started in British Columbia as "repeal 2 for every new regulation". It does seem like it could be useful as a short term policy, if Congress can't find any way to agree on directly repealing unnecessary regulations.

> It does seem like it could be useful as a short term policy, if Congress can't find any way to agree on directly repealing unnecessary regulations.

Regulations are issued by the executive branch, not Congress (repealing regulations is actually done by issuing regulations specifying the regulations to be repealed, so the process for repeal is the same.)

Also, "a regulation" isn't a well-defined unit.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#140

Post by spinlock »

pasquinelli wrote: post #93
kafkaesq wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remove two existing regulations for every new regulation On the bright side, this is a sure-fire recipe for deadlock.

or for ballooning the size and complexity of each regulation, as each new regulation has to fold into itself two existing regulations that need to be removed for the sake of this plan.

That's been happening forever. Have you ever wondered why the law that says you can keep your healthcare when you leave your job is called the Combined Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA)?
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