House Speaker Paul Ryan presented his economic agenda last week, but it does not deal with the country’s problems with jobs, wages, investment, trade, inequality or other pressing economic issues. Rather, its 57 pages boil down to one idea: Roll back hundreds of federal regulations that protect consumers, investors, employees, borrowers, students and the environment.

The plan bases its case for deregulation on the claim that “the American people now spend $1.89 trillion every year, just to comply with Washington’s rules — approximately $15,000 per household.” That estimate, from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market group formed in 1984, has been debunked. Its fatal flaw is that it assumes regulations have only costs and no benefits. The Ryan plan recycles that absurdity. It harps on corporate compliance costs while ignoring the social and economic benefits of, say, clean air, clean water, time-and-a-half for overtime, properly underwritten loans and adequate bank capital, to name just a few of the regulatory targets.

Mr. Ryan seems to think his ideas would become reality in a Donald Trump administration. “We feel very confident that our presumptive nominee is comfortable with this agenda,” he said in announcing the plan.

That may be, but the American people are unlikely to be comfortable with it. One of the bills promoted in the plan would repeal “all climate-change regulations under the Clean Air Act.” Others promote coal mining and offshore oil drilling. These proposals are consistent with statements by Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, that he would eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency, but they do not reflect public opinion.