American taxpayers and corporations not only paid a combined record $1.85 trillion in taxes to Uncle Sam so far this year, but they've also been hit with a $1.9 trillion bill in regulatory and red tape costs, according to a new analysis.

The final bill so far is $3.7 trillion, according to the regulatory watchdog Competitive Enterprise Institute.



The record federal income and corporate tax receipts are "still no match" for the cost of regulation for cost of regulations, said Clyde Wayne Crews, vice president for policy and director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

While income and corporate taxes are "easy to see," he said in a new report, "no one really knows or can know the ‘other' cost of government, that of interventions and regulatory mandates."

He estimates it at $1.9 trillion, though some projections go as high as $4 trillion, and they totally offset profits.

The costs of red tape and regulation are being targeted by President Trump and his budget team. So far, they've make huge cuts and are cutting some 16 old regulations for every new one they implement.

Crews wrote:

Corporate income taxes collected by the U.S. government, estimated as noted at $278 billion for 2017, are dwarfed by regulatory costs. (Incidentally, corporate tax receipts had declined by half during the economic downturn after 2008).

So, despite record individual income tax collections, the combination of the two, $1.85 trillion, still falls short of our regulatory cost reckoning of $1.9 trillion.

Indeed, regulatory compliance costs are approaching the level of pretax corporate profits, which were $2.138 trillion in 2015.

This is all food for thought for policymakers who can't seem to get their act together on any kind of regulatory liberalization in an effort to avoid being seen cooperating with President Trump at all costs.

The problem is that doing nothing costs us, not them. It isn't just that government spending is high, the amount that the federal government requires the private sector to spend is high too, and they avoid assessing those costs.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com