Cass R. Sunstein, Columnist

Jeb Bush Wants to Get Tough on Regulations

The person who oversaw rulemaking for Obama thinks this Republican is onto something.

September 23, 2015 at 12:10 PM UTC

Cass R. Sunstein is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the author of “The Cost-Benefit Revolution” and a co-author of “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness.”

Better rules await.
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images

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Republican presidential candidate and former Florida governor Jeb Bush has just released a plan for regulatory reform. Though there are a few clunkers, many of his ideas are excellent. (I have had some experience on these issues; from 2009 to 2013, I helped oversee regulation under President Barack Obama, as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.)

Here’s a good one: A formal process for “spring cleaning” of regulations on the books. Bush proposes that every eight years, OIRA should review the costs and benefits of major regulations. More ambitiously, he wants to create an independent commission, focused on the cumulative costs of rules and identifying those that need to be modified or repealed.