Well I'm sure there's still a lot of opportunities to combine and simplify existing regulations. You wouldn't be able to do it forever but I don't think we'll run out this term.
I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of federal regulations but I seriously doubt that anyone posting here does either. Trump's policy is based on the idea (taken as a truism) that the majority of existing federal regulations are bad and should go away. That seems like a pretty bold statement for anyone to make that would be almost impossible to substantiate.
If these statements were made by incredibly scholarly policy wonks who love nothing more than to learn about the government and think about how it could be improved, that'd be one thing (it'd still be a very suspect statement though). However, I can't imagine that this came from any place more scholarly than people assuming that none of this stuff could possibly exist for any good reason. If they want to get rid of specific regulations, they should just get rid of what regulations they think are unnecessary.
The policy also assumes that any new regulation would be equally unnecessary. It would turn any attempt to add a regulation into a political battle to not only add the regulation, but also a political battle to get rid of two others. This could cause needed regulations to not get passed because some vested interest has the political power to defend the two preexisting regulations. So it neither helps necessary regulations get adopted, nor does it help to get rid of unnecessary regulations. Again, if they think there are so many pointless regulations, just get rid of them. No need to bundle everything together like this.
Fair enough. But then shouldn't the process me "Lets sit down and look at these, and take out the ones that are just not applicable nowadays?". This tit-for-tat style bargaining usually just ends up with both sides compromising or making rash decisions which may end up with the baby being thrown out with the bath water...
For a "law and order" candidate it's also curious to propose removing laws. Of course, in his mind the necessary laws are those that constrain personal behavior (drugs, vice, abortion). The laws to repeal will be those that "cost jobs" by protecting worker safety, consumers, or the environment.
