Until they get tangled up in them, most people probably pay little attention to the metastasizing regulations that governments impose on us.  Spread across society, regulations tend to avoid focusing so much pain as to spark broad, targeted resistance, whereas special interests, including established businesses with incentive to create barriers to entry for competition, have great incentive to keep the ratchet turning.  Moreover, most people don’t see the direct link between regulation and mounting costs in the prices of goods and services and opportunities they personally never realize.  That’s why common sense rules of thumbs like this, described by the Wall Street Journal editorial board, are important:

President Trump signed an executive order Monday that will require federal agencies to eliminate two existing regulations for every new one created, fulfilling another signature campaign trail promise.

The president signed the order from the Oval Office minutes after emerging from a roundtable with small business owners, who surrounded the Resolute desk as Trump praised the rule.

The executive order would also forbid estimated costs of regulations from going up.

We need this sort of policy on steroids in Rhode Island.  Maybe a dozen regulations killed for every one introduced.