Trump 10-for-1 Deregulation

President Trump, on January 31, 2025, signed an executive order that requires federal agencies to identify at least 10 rules, regulations or pieces of guidance to repeal anytime they issue a new rule or regulation. The order also directs the director of OMB to measure and estimate regulatory costs. For 2025, the cost of new regulations must be less than zero (and account for decreased costs associated with eliminating existing regulations). This new deregulation order is similar to the executive order that President Trump signed during his first term in office, which only required that two sets of rules or regulations be eliminated for each newly proposed rule or regulation (Biden rescinded this policy on his first day in office).

We asked two professors and authors of ALM’s Tax Facts with opposing political viewpoints to share their opinions about Trumps 10-for-1 deregulation executive order.

Below is a summary of the debate that ensued between the two professors.

Their Votes:





Their Reasons:

Byrnes: We're living in a time where we have tens of thousands of pages of regulations on the books. It's nearly impossible to navigate the maze of regulations interpreting the legitimate laws passed by Congress and the President. These regulations are creating an extreme amount of government waste and have passed on an estimated $1.7 trillion in wasteful expenses to hard working Americans. Trump’s deregulation order will go a long way toward eliminating the waste.

Bloink: This order is wholly unreasonable. By some accounts, the DOL alone released three sets of regulations in 2024. Assuming roughly the same number of regulations for 2025, the executive order means the DOL would then have to eliminate 30 existing regulations or proposed regulations in order to provide much-needed guidance to businesses, advisors and others who are actually putting the laws into practice. This is entirely unworkable given the importance of agency regulations.

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Byrnes: These regulations place an incredible burden on American businesses. The aim of this deregulation order is to ease that burden so that even the smallest businesses can thrive and grow unhindered. The order makes exceptions for regulations and rules that impose minimal burdens on the private sector. The point isn’t to eliminate needed guidance, but to weed out rules and regulations that are not essential and yet create difficult burdens for the American people.

Bloink: While the Trump administration slams government agencies for their ineffectiveness, they fail to recognize the critical role that agencies like the IRS and DOL play. When we read a piece of legislation like the SECURE Act or even the TCJA, we may be looking at hundreds (or even thousands) of pages of legislative text. It’s impossible to provide all needed guidance within the text of the legislation itself—and we have to remember that federal agencies aren’t creating these rules and regulations for no reason.

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Byrnes: Overregulation at the agency level makes it nearly impossible for small businesses to get started, operate and succeed. Eliminating these levels of government inefficiency is critical to protecting the American people from this type of unnecessary waste and bureaucracy. We elected President Trump to weed out the waste and that’s exactly what we’re getting with this type of deregulation order.

Bloink: Whenever a new law is passed, inevitably, real-world practitioners require clarifications that cannot all be addressed within the text of a law itself. Agency regulation is essential so that businesses and owners have the clarity they need to put the laws to work without running afoul of them. Without these critical regulations, taxpayers do not have the information they need to effectively follow and make use of the law. Trump’s extreme deregulation order is going to be highly detrimental when it comes to getting the guidance we deserve.