“President Trump and Republicans in Congress are cutting regulations, and the economy is growing at 3 percent. That’s the kind of change that’s possible under Republican pro-growth policies.”
Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s remarks.
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor on how President Trump and Republicans in Congress are growing the economy by cutting unnecessary regulations.
Excerpts of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“About a year ago, the American people voted for fundamental change in this country.
“Last week, Republicans in the Senate continued to deliver.
“We passed a plan to give Americans substantial tax relief.
“This legislation is exactly what people were asking for last November – and it’s exactly what this country needs now.
“Because of this Republican plan, people will be able to keep a lot more of their hard-earned money.
“They’re going to be able to find that their taxes are going to be simpler and fairer.
“They’re going to see our economy getting stronger and healthier.
“That’s good news for our country – and it’s certainly good news for the American people.
“This legislation was an important promise that Republicans made, and it’s a promise that Republicans have kept.
“It’s just the latest Republican accomplishment that is helping Americans.
“Another thing that’s been going on has been the tremendous relief from Washington regulations that Republicans are providing.
“I think a lot of people lost track of exactly how much damage Democrats and the Obama administration had been doing to the American economy.
“The Obama administration added 285 major regulations during the course of the previous administration.
“Every one of them imposed a burden on Americans.
“The total cost of these is $122 billion per year.
“That’s both the direct cost in terms of the money, and also counting the time needed to fill out paperwork created by these rules.
“Twenty-one of these rules were actually finalized after the 2016 presidential election.
“That’s after the American people had spoken, and said that they wanted change.
“President Obama went right ahead piling more regulations onto people’s backs anyway.
“So one of the first things that Republicans in Congress did this year was to start striking down unnecessary, burdensome, costly regulations from the Obama years.
“Republicans wiped 15 of these major rules off the books.
“A major rule is a rule that costs over $100 million in terms of the compliance cost, the actual cost, the time cost.
“That’s going to save Americans as much as $36 billion over time.
“One of these rules was an important part of President Obama’s war on coal.
“It was called the stream buffer rule.
“It was designed to shut down a lot of the coal mining that’s going on in this country.
“It would have destroyed up to a third of coal mining jobs in America.
“So we passed a congressional resolution that protected coal mining jobs, and protected American energy independence.
“We struck down 14 regulations like this one in the first few months of this year.
“In October, Republicans blocked a 15th rule.
“That was a new regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“The rule was written during the Obama administration, and Obama appointees at the agency finalized it last summer.
“This is the agency that’s been in the news recently because it’s so out-of-control.
“Republicans in Congress had to step in and get rid of an unnecessary rule that was really just a payoff by the Democrats to trial lawyers.
“So Republicans have saved Americans $36 billion by getting rid of rules and regulations – Democrats, on the other hand, cost the American people $122 billion a year in costs due to rules and regulations.
“Republicans in the Senate also took a major step in this tax relief legislation by repealing the Obamacare insurance mandate tax.
“It’s going to save a lot of Americans a lot of money.
“In 2015, there were 6.7 million Americans who paid this tax.
“The average tax penalty by the American people this year has been $700.
“It’s a big deal to give American families relief from that tax burden.
“It’s also a big part of rolling back this idea that Washington knows best what works all across the country.
“The Obamacare insurance mandate is more than a tax – and the damage it does is more than just the paperwork, and the money that people have to pay.
“It’s an outrageous and an unfair requirement that people have to buy something that isn’t right for them and their family, but the government says they have to buy.
“When Republicans struck down this mandate, we gave people back the freedom to decide for themselves – and to make their own choices.
“So Republicans in Congress have been very busy saving Americans from the burdens and the injustice of these Obama regulations.
“I can tell you that we have a very strong ally in the form of the Trump administration. President Trump has been the Deregulator in Chief.
“Since his very first day in office, he’s been rolling back the regulations that people had been straining under for the previous eight years.
“He froze action on nearly 2,000 Obama administration rules that hadn’t taken effect yet.
“He wrote a new rule for his administration – one new rule in, two go out.
“This said that for every significant new regulation, his administration would offset it by getting rid of two other rules.
“That’s how you make a difference in Washington.
“That’s how the president was able to remove 860 ineffective, duplicative, and obsolete regulations in just his first six months in office.
“That’s a very big difference from what Democrats in Washington did – and we’ve already started seeing the results.
“The American economy has created two million jobs since President Trump was elected a little over a year ago.
“Our economy grew at a rate of 3.3 percent last quarter.
“The unemployment rate has dropped to 4.1 percent.
“Last Friday, the Washington Post had two items on one page of the paper.
“The first one said that consumer spending had increased in October, and incomes grew.
“The article says, ‘The October rise indicates that consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, began the fourth quarter with healthy momentum.’
“The second article, same day, Washington Post, Friday noted that weekly applications for unemployment aid fell for the week.
“It said that when the number of unemployment applications are low like this, it’s a sign that hiring is healthy.
“It’s a sign that employers are confident enough to keep workers on the payroll.
“During the Obama years, Washington Democrats piled on all of these regulatory impacts on the economy.
“Because of them, economists said that they expect future growth to be around 1.8 percent.
“President Trump and Republicans in Congress are cutting regulations, and the economy is growing at three percent.
“That’s the kind of change that’s possible under Republican pro-growth policies.
“That’s why we’re confident that we’re on the right track.
“It’s why we’re confident that the economy is going to continue to accelerate under the tax relief that we passed this past week.
“It’s why we’re confident that America will continue to thrive when we give people relief from the Washington regulations – and start to unwind the red tape.
“That’s what the American people voted for a little over a year ago.
“That’s what Republicans are delivering – in Congress, and in the White House.”
###