Washington: US President Donald Trump Friday talked up his works on deregulation, saying that his administration is getting rid of the "job-killing regulations".
Addressing journalists inside the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Trump said his administration had cancelled or delayed over 1,500 planned regulatory actions to date.
"For the first time in decades, the government achieved regulatory savings," Trump said.
Delivering on his presidential campaign promise, Trump had, early in his presidency, put out an order which said that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.
"We blew our target out of the water," he boasted Friday.
Trump said his administration is conducting the most far-reaching regulatory reform process in American history.
"We’re scrapping and really doing a job in getting rid of the job-killing regulations that threatened our autoworkers and have devastated their jobs over the years. But they’re all moving back (into our country)," he said.
Read: Indian-American key figure in Trump’s deregulation scheme
According to Trump, those regulations that are in place do the job better than all of the other regulations, and they allow them to build and create jobs.
"We are now reducing the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations for the first time in decades, and we are already seeing the incredible results," he said.
The results, he said, were evident in the "record" level of the stock market.
"Because of regulatory and other reforms, the stock market is soaring to new record levels, creating USD 5 trillion of new wealth. And the USD5 trillion was as of about three weeks ago, so I assume we probably hit USD 6 trillion, almost," he said.
"Unemployment is at a 17-year-low, wages are rising, economic growth has topped 3 per cent. Two quarters in a row now we've had that. And except for the hurricanes, we would have almost hit four percent," he said.
Trump said his administration had "decades of excess regulation" to remove, adding that he is challenging his cabinet to find and remove every single outdated, unlawful, and excessive regulation currently on the books.
After concluding his speech, Trump literally cut the red tape on regulation.
There were two stacks of white office paper in the room.
One was labelled "1960" and was about shin-high; the other was labelled "TODAY," and around 6’3’’.
Trump explained that in 1960, there were 20,000 pages of federal regulations, compared to 185,000 pages today.
Trump was handed a pair of gold scissors with which he cut through the piece of red tape connected to the two stacks of paper.
"When Americans are free to thrive, innovate, and prosper, there is no challenge too great, no task too large, and no goal beyond our reach," he said.
"We’re getting back below the 1960 level, and we'll be there fairly quickly," he added.
