For years, American businesses have suffered under the weight of overreaching regulations. Now, President Trump has begun lightening that burden.

In an executive order, he declared that every time a Washington bureaucracy makes a new rule, it must pick two for the recycle bin. The United Kingdom and Australia have used similar policies to reduce regulation.

The President’s order also says that this fiscal year, the costs new rules impose on the public must not exceed the costs eliminated by repeals. In future years, each department will get a budget for how much it can increase regulatory costs — or how much it must cut them.

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In 2015, the Code of Federal Regulations numbered 178,277 pages. On normal paper, that would be twice as tall as a Tyrannosaurus rex. The rules cover such weighty matters as what can be sold as “whipped cream” and how certain owners must feed their hamsters. They also regulate banks and determine which drugs are subject to which federal prohibitions — so some regulations save fortunes and lives.

The costs of complying with regulations include the expenses of figuring out what they require, which sometimes means hiring a lawyer. Then comes doing what the rules require. In last year’s edition of Ten Thousand Commandments, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr., estimated that following regulations costs $1.88 billion a year, more than the federal income tax.

And the rules hit small businesses harder than large ones, if only because each additional lawyer’s salary is a trivial expense for Ford or Wal-Mart.

Worse, sometimes regulations simply stop someone from doing something that would make people’s lives better, such as selling raw milk to customers who prefer it. And, because it’s impossible for anyone to know all the regulations, anyone who wants to do something new or unusual has to wonder: Is it legal? An American who simply assumes that a harmless action is legal may face trouble, and penalties.

President Trump isn’t dumping the whole CFR. He is simply demanding that when Washington imposes new rules on the American people, the bureaucrats responsible pay a price — a price in reduced regulation. 

That’s sensible. Americans shouldn’t feel they are at constant risk of breaking the law.

First Published February 3, 2017, 5:00 a.m.