"It costs American businesses more than $2 trillion each year to comply with government regulations—and that leads to higher prices for families," Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) tweets. "We can get the government off people's backs and lower the cost-of-living with another reconciliation bill."
It costs American businesses more than $2 trillion each year to comply with government regulations—and that leads to higher prices for families.
— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) December 21, 2025
We can get the government off people’s backs and lower the cost-of-living with another reconciliation bill.https://t.co/PuyIdChouk
$2 trillion is a lot of money, and it can have a trickle-down effect on families.
When the executive spills regulatory ink, the impact can be broad. There are manifold problems attached to regulations. Here are five of those problems. One, that's not how it's supposed to work. Second, they can be burdensome. Third, they can be short-lived. Fourth, they can create confusion between them and actual laws. Fifth, time moves between when lawless regulations are issued and when they are struck down.
Laws that go through the passage process carry the force of law. This means they have been approved by both chambers of Congress and the president of the United States. Regulations issued by administrative bureaucrats do not bear the same legal standard. They are rules which unelected officeholders attempt to implement. Those attempting to implement them may mean well, but they do not do well by their initiatives because they sidestep the ordered system of congressional passage and executive approval.
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There might never have arisen an unburdensome regulation. There's no such thing, in other words. A regulation is by its very nature burdensome because it is a rule issued that requires compliance. Something becomes ruled upon, and businesses and individuals who are in the context of what the rule addresses are required to obey it. This can add to the cost of doing business. It can cause a company extra expense in changing a practice, and it can require a business to obtain legal services to understand what they must comply with and how they must comply. It can be a complicated process, and the extra costs to businesses are passed on to consumers, as well as to those who are employed (someone couid lost a job due to cost shifting).
A tertiary problem with regulations is that they are transient. They are implemented by one executive, but they can be just as easily expunged by another executive, particularly when a change of executive power reflects a change of executive policy priority. Some of the same executive policy ideological orientation likely continued throughout the administrations of former President Warren Harding to former President Calvin Coolidge through former President Herbert Hoover. But when former President Franklin Roosevelt assumed office, a different set of policy objectives arrived. It is understandable how shifts in policy determination can happen at increasingly shorter intervals of time in today's world.
As mentioned, laws are passed by Congress and approved by the executive. When regulations are issued by agencies, they could (and likely do) create confusion about the difference between laws and regulations. This can weaken the rule of law and obstruct the ability of individuals and businesses to follow the law.
Unconstitutional regulations are destined to be struck down, but time elapses before they are so nullified. It takes time for an executive regulation to be issued, for it to be challenged, and for the courts to rule (and, if necessary, for it to go all the way to the Supreme Court). In some cases, it could even take time for some bad regulations to be properly challenged. All of this leaves those who will have to adhere to such rules in limbo, and that also can cost money.
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