My column in Bloomberg View advocates a moratorium on new regulations.

Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, has introduced legislation to declare a moratorium on major new regulations until the unemployment rate drops to 7.7 percent — that is, until it goes lower than it was when Obama took office. (The president would have the power to waive the rule to address national emergencies.)
“I’m not anti-government,” Johnson told me. “We do need some regulation. The purpose of my piece of legislation is to call a halt to the issuance of new regulations until we get our economy back on its feet.” The amount of regulation, he adds, “is a ball and chain on the necks of job creators.”

Update: A study for the Small Business Administration estimated that the gross cost of regulation in 2008 was $1.75 trillion. The White House now has a regulatory-review plan to save. . . $10 billion over five years. And those are surely savings off a rising baseline.