Donald Trump signed a new executive order today aimed at deregulation, which his administration is calling a “one in, two out” plan. In an era of bombastic pronouncements, Trump said this is “a big one.” A big one, but it sounds childish:
“There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be a normalized control,” he said, apparently having no idea what “normalized” means.
Here is the text of the executive order:
Apparently, agencies will propose which regulations they wish to drop and submit their choices to the White House, where Trump will give them their due attention. It is not known if new regulations can take effect before the old regulations have been revoked.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has observed that “Donald Trump already seems drunk with power,” and this flurry of executive orders seems to bear this up. This new order is already receiving the expected ridicule on social media, like Trump’s other executive orders.
The criticism is certainly well-deserved, as the rule with Trump’s orders is that they are typically ill-thought out, hurried, “slap-dash” (in Chuck Schumer’s words) documents put out more for his ongoing theater than for their imagined positive effects.