You’d think from the debate raging in Washington that taxes are the key to economic growth. They aren’t. In the long run, innovation matters way more, and that depends on inspiration, experimentation and luck, not tax-law changes.

Yet presidents matter for promoting innovation even if it’s less glamorous than taxes. Their support often takes the form of directing money toward basic research or favored industries such as defense or renewable energy.

Under President Donald Trump the place to look is the regulators. Two of his appointees in particular, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, have prioritized reducing regulatory hurdles to private investment as a way of boosting innovation. It’s too early to gauge their success, but the efforts merit more attention at a time when the growth debate is focused on steep, deficit-financed tax cuts.

Consider pharmaceutical companies. Though vocal advocates of slashing the corporate tax rate, their bigger problem is the staggering cost of development: $2.6 billion on average to bring a new drug to market, once the cost of capital and failed drugs is included, according to Tufts University’s Center for the Study of Drug Development. Between 1989 and 2011 the cost per patient of a clinical trial more than doubled, after inflation, according to one study.

This in great part is because the most treatable diseases already have therapies, leaving only the toughest ones. But regulation may also play a role.