When President Joe Biden gave the go-ahead to federal regulators, it set off a storm of rising costs and mountains of paperwork that have affected everyone across the country. A recent audit revealed that under Biden’s leadership, the federal rules and regulations piled on more than ever before—breaking all previous records.
So, what does that look like? According to a new report from the American Action Forum, the total cost of these regulations under Biden has topped $1.8 trillion—way more than any past administration. That’s a staggering amount of money!
But it doesn’t stop there. The report also highlights how the added regulations have led to 356 million extra hours of paperwork for businesses, big and small, across the country. That’s a lot of time spent filling out forms instead of doing business.
Biden’s administration hit a huge milestone last year, surpassing even its own record from 2021 by adding new rules that amounted to about $1.3 trillion. As Dan Goldbeck, Director of Regulatory Policy at AAF, put it, “The cost side results are remarkable. With a grand total of $1.8 trillion, the Biden administration leaves all past administrations behind.”
In contrast, President Donald Trump’s time in office saw some of the lowest regulatory costs. Trump’s administration promised to cut regulations, and Biden’s team has added quite a few, especially from the Environmental Protection Agency. This is where most of the cost came from, largely due to new programs focused on emissions.
As for Trump’s plan to repeal Biden’s regulations, he’s promised to remove up to 10 Biden rules for every new one he implements. However, there hasn’t been any formal action on this yet.
With Biden’s record-setting regulatory agenda in place, it looks like this high-cost and paperwork-heavy era may stick around for a while—at least for the next few years.
