The principle and the California counterexample
Deregulation on the show is framed first as a principle about the proper relationship between government and markets. Bob Zadek argues that the Constitution is “totally benign” on economic policy and that free markets are assumed rather than enumerated, with only the phrase “interstate commerce” touching the subject at all. From this he draws the conclusion that any policy in which government does less economically is a good policy, and that the word “unleash” in the name of a committee he discusses means to let go and step back Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018).
The show’s most concrete treatment of deregulation gone wrong is California’s electricity restructuring. A caller, David from San Francisco, describes the deregulation of electricity in California as written by Enron in 1996, and says that the night before the vote there was agreement from everybody from the Sierra Club to the Heritage Foundation, but that the next morning somebody put a new bill on the table and everybody thought it was the same bill. Bob Zadek responds that California’s approach was “utterly moronic” because it did not deregulate the retail rates, only the wholesale rates How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014).
The same caller pairs the electricity episode with MTBE, which he describes as a waste product from the oil and gas industry that the industry conned the state legislature into accepting as an emissions-reducing additive. Bob Zadek generalizes the point: once business can find an environmental reason, even if it is junk science, a proposal sails through and amounts to imposing a product on the public. He contrasts this with the alternative of manufacturers simply offering CFL and LED bulbs at their higher price and letting the public decide How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014).
The regulatory state and its legal machinery
A later episode turns from the principle to the mechanics. Bob Zadek and Sam Batkins discuss the proliferation of “midnight regulations” in the final days of the Obama administration, exploring the legal mechanisms of the regulatory state, the delegation of power from Congress to unelected agencies, and the challenges the incoming Trump administration faces in attempting to deregulate through the Administrative Procedure Act and the Congressional Review Act A Lame Duck’s Last Stand (2017).
The episode’s framing places the regulatory state in constitutional context. Bob Zadek opens by recalling George Washington’s inauguration on January 8th, 1790, in New York City, and notes that at ratification only 11 of the 13 colonies ratified, with Rhode Island a holdout and North Carolina the last state, holding out because it was disappointed that the Constitution lacked a Bill of Rights until Madison promised one A Lame Duck’s Last Stand (2017).
Deregulation and economic confidence
Stephen Moore, discussing the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity, agrees with Bob Zadek’s reading of “unleash” and says the government puts leg weights around the economy even while acting as if it is helping. He argues that for every new regulation passed under Donald Trump, 20 have been repealed, an “amazing reversal” from what he characterizes as a regulatory onslaught under Obama Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018).
Moore’s account of business behavior during the recovery is that companies became profitable, cut costs, deleveraged and became ruthlessly efficient, but did not reinvest. He says CEOs told him they were “terrified,” calling fear a four-letter F-word, and that they did not know what was coming next, whether Obamacare, tax increases on the rich, massive debt, government spending or taxes. In his telling, the change under Trump is less what he has done than what he is not doing Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018).
On trade, Moore says he and Larry Kudlow told Trump they could not work for him because they were for free trade and he was a protectionist, and that Trump banged his fist on the table and said he was not a protectionist. Moore calls the steel and aluminum tariffs a mistake and the threat of auto tariffs a big mistake, and says the steel and aluminum tariffs do not create jobs because the 15,000 steel and aluminum jobs supposedly saved come at the cost of companies paying more for inputs Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018).
Trump’s deregulatory record assessed
John McGinnis, giving what Bob Zadek frames as a report card on liberty, lists tax reduction as a positive, including the corporate rate change and the capping of the state and local tax deduction, which he says increases competition among states and creates greater accountability in state government. He also calls the general deregulatory structure a very positive matter, citing a substantial deregulation in a variety of areas, including rolling back Obama-era education rules and what he describes as a more rational environmental regulatory agenda Here Comes the Storm (2019).
Occupational licensing and the legal profession
Clifford Winston, a microeconomist, explains the difference between his field and macroeconomics: microeconomists focus on specific markets and industries and the policy issues relating to them, while macroeconomists focus on the overall economy and largely on federal government policy Trouble at the Bar (2021).
Winston describes beginning his career studying transportation industries in the 1970s, when they were undergoing the transition to deregulation after years of regulation and concerns about performance. He says it was widely believed that deregulation would improve performance, and that he studied airlines, railroads and trucking. One lesson he draws is that initial perspectives on what would happen were not quite right and required a long-run view Trouble at the Bar (2021).
He then turned to the legal profession as an industry subject to entry barriers in the form of occupational licensing, treating it as another regulated industry to study Trouble at the Bar (2021).
The same logic appears in a caller’s comment on medical licensing. A caller, Eben from Fairfax, argues that naturopathic doctors should have equal coverage or attention as medical doctors. Bob Zadek agrees and says it is only a highly regulated system that denies such practitioners access to the marketplace, arguing that in a total free market, with insurance able to cover such practitioners and with Medicare either absent or covering every kind of healthcare, the caller would have his way and Bob would have his Will Wilkinson: G.O.P. Should Embrace the Welfare State (2017).
Will Wilkinson qualifies the analogy, noting that the food market is not completely unregulated because there are trade barriers. On healthcare, he says he does not favor privatizing Medicare at that point but calls it the single most expensive thing the government does, and attributes the expense to a system that does not work as a market, with no transparent prices, very little competition, and a bunch of little cartels setting prices arbitrarily. He says redesign would include a lot of deregulation of the system, a price system people can respond to, choice among providers, and a level of deregulation allowing people to try therapies not covered by current plans Will Wilkinson: G.O.P. Should Embrace the Welfare State (2017).
Across episodes: the argument shifts from principle to mechanics
The excerpts show a change in treatment rather than a change in position. In the 2014 episode, deregulation is argued at the level of principle, with California’s electricity restructuring as the cautionary case and Bob Zadek distinguishing the principle of deregulation from how California did it How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014). By 2017, the discussion has moved to the legal machinery of the regulatory state, with Sam Batkins and Bob Zadek examining midnight regulations and the Administrative Procedure Act and Congressional Review Act as the instruments through which deregulation must proceed A Lame Duck’s Last Stand (2017). In 2018 and 2019, Stephen Moore and John McGinnis assess an actual deregulatory record, with Moore supplying the 20-to-1 repeal figure and McGinnis grading tax and regulatory changes Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018) Here Comes the Storm (2019). In 2021, Clifford Winston extends the deregulation frame from transportation to occupational licensing in the legal profession, treating entry barriers as a form of regulation Trouble at the Bar (2021). The through-line is Bob Zadek’s, but the later episodes supply the institutional detail the earlier ones assert as principle.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the outcome of any legal challenge to California’s electricity restructuring, nor do they name the bill that the caller describes as substituted the morning after the vote. They do not give the text or holding of any case turning on the Administrative Procedure Act or the Congressional Review Act, and they do not state the date of the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity’s founding or the full contents of Trump’s deregulatory orders. The Winston excerpts are fragments that establish his field and his turn to the legal profession but do not state his findings about licensing’s effects.