President Donald Trump (R) issued an executive order on October 10 that aims to ensure that federal administrative agencies “consider the costs of their administrative actions, take steps to offset those costs, and curtail costly administrative actions,” according to the order.
The executive order targets a federal budgeting mechanism known as administrative pay-as-you-go (PAYGO), which was implemented through an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo in 2005. Administrative PAYGO requires agencies that propose discretionary increases in mandatory spending (i.e. not required by statute) to also include one or more proposals to reduce mandatory spending.
The Trump administration claims that some applications of administrative PAYGO have actually resulted in higher mandatory spending. The executive order aims to restore the principle of administrative PAYGO by requiring agencies to submit administrative PAYGO proposals to the OMB director for review.
Trump issued the executive order on the heels of two other executive orders targeting administrative practices. The two other executive orders aim to prohibit the creation of binding rules through agency guidance documents and curb what the Trump administration refers to as administrative abuses by requiring agencies to provide fair notice of regulations, respectively.