The federal government has embarked on a major deregulatory push since 2017, but summarizing its effects has proven difficult. Federal agencies issue cost-benefit analyses of specific deregulatory actions, hut courts have struck down several of the proposed rule changes, and state governments have taken countervailing action against others. To obtain a clear understanding of the overall effectiveness of the Trump administration's deregulatory efforts, this article provides a rigorous, empirical review of deregulatory actions taken and the countervailing effect of judicial actions and state governments. Methodological problems have plagued estimates of overall Trump administration regulatory savings, most of which have come from right-leaning sources in and out of government. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), for example, releases the authoritative federal accounting of deregulatory savings. However, its approach is overly simplistic, includes rules that are deregulatory in only a technical sense, and examines only the present value of anticipated future savings. Examining only present value assumes that all future expected regulatory savings will materialize, an assumption that requires no intervention by the judiciary or state governments. As we will see, this assumption is unwarranted. Through this accounting approach, OMB has claimed $23 billion in overall savings from deregulation over an indefinite time horizon, amounting to $1.6 billion annually, but a closer review finds only around $131 to $261 million in actual annual savings through the end of fiscal year 2018. An empirical examination of less tangible "soft" benefits of deregulation--e.g., the decreased expectation of future regulation by businesses--yields no clear evidence of deregulatory effect beyond tbe savings identified in specific deregulatory actions. Anticipated actions by courts and the governments of proregulation states against upcoming or ongoing major deregulatory actions suggest the bottom line of federal deregulatory savings estimates will not change dramatically in the near future. The totality of the evidence thus suggests the administration's deregulatory efforts have not and will not meaningfully alter the country's economic growth. To the contrary, the available evidence suggests that the Trump administration's deregulatory campaign has been ineffective and is unlikely to improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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