Five Thirty Eight, February 9, 2017: Trump Skeptics Tell Us Where They Think The GOP Is Headed
“Lee: Yeah, you’re right. President Trump and I had our differences along the way, but he has won now, and he won quite effectively with a message that told people, ‘Look, America’s poor and middle class are having a tough time, just as the rich and well-connected are getting along great.’ A lot of that has to do with the fact that too much power has accumulated in Washington and it’s been given to government bureaucrats. To put this in perspective, in 2016, Congress passed and the president signed 2,966 pages of new laws while federal agencies [issued] 97,110 pages of new regulations — about 32 times as much. It’s a big difference between these two sets of laws because although they both contain legally binding requirements and norms, the large set of documents was put in place on account of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. It’s the smaller set that’s put in place by people who were actually elected by the people to make laws.”