Cass Sunstein's regulatory reform and government simplification efforts

President Obama's Regulatory Czar

Cass Sunstein has served as President Obama's regulatory czar and discusses his service in this position in a book he wrote regarding the future of government. In his book, Sunstein provides considerable insights regarding how he assisted in simplifying bureaucracy resulting in increased cost-effectiveness and realization of improved outcomes. The cost-effectiveness is evident in that he helped save the country $91 billion and improved outcomes is associated with healthier and longer lives for Americans. Despite his remarkable achievements, Cass Sunstein left the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in 2012. While Sunstein's helped in the implementation of several policies, there are additional policies that can be implemented to help in further simplification of this leviathan of a government.

Sunstein's Work

One of the major issues that have characterized President Obama's administration in the past four years is regulations, which is one of the most controversial issues or topics in Washington, DC. Actually, conservatives and industry groups have accused the president for developing and enacting many regulations including rules for Wall Street, rules for automobiles, and rules for coal plants. In contrast, progressive groups argue that while President Obama is coming up with many regulations, the White House is relatively slow in developing many significant regulations that could enhance health and safety (Plumer, 2013).

One of the major things Cass Sunstein accomplished during his stint as President Obama's regulatory czar was ensuring improved openness and transparency in light of how agencies considered public comments. This process of improvement was characterized with substantial upgrading of regulations.gov through which people can see proposed regulations. Secondly, Sunstein embarked on an increasingly disciplined assessment of the costs and benefits of regulations in attempts to constantly quantify what needed to be quantified. In this case, his focus was to lessen the costs of rules while increasing their net benefits, particularly during economically difficult times.

Cass Sunstein's provides several examples of how he accomplished these objectives in his book, Simpler: The Future of Government. Notably, these objectives were based on the premise that the government has effectively promoted interagency coordination and consultation and careful assessment of costs and benefits, which has been a long-term aspect of regulation for several years. He also recognizes that the implementation of regulatory is significantly affected by complexity, which is a major problem in the way the government has been operating. The complexity was characterized by accumulating paperwork burdens without significant efforts toward large-scale reduction. Generally, Sunstein helped in ensuring that the net benefits of rules outweighed costs despite increased criticisms that the government was coming up with too many costly rules.

Execution of the Policy

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at White House will undertake further measures to implement the policy towards paperwork reduction beyond merely encouraging federal agencies to adopt meaningful steps towards this objective. OIRA will ensure that every proposed rule or regulation is drafted in plain language and consist of executive summaries that are easily understandable to the public regardless of the focus of the regulation. Secondly, this office will encourage public participation in the process of drafting the rules in order to make simple and easy to implement. Third, OIRA will substitute incomprehensible disclosure requirements in the process of drafting and implementing proposed rules. These processes will help in eliminating tens of millions of hours in paperwork requirements as well as removal of outmoded requirements (Sunstein, 2009, p.209). During the execution of these steps, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs will harmonize rules that are seemingly related in order to prevent duplication of regulatory drafts. The harmonization process will contribute to further decrease in paperwork and increased simplification of operations.

In conclusion, the development and implementation of rules has been one of the most controversial topics in Washington and President Obama's Administration. The controversy is particularly fueled by concerns that the government is coming up with too many rules. The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs through Cass Sunstein has attempted to deal with these concerns through effective cost-benefit analysis approaches. However, further simplification can be achieved through measures that focus on reduction of paperwork.