There is no denying that the plethora of government regulations spewing out of Washington, D.C., state capitols and local governments impose costs on economic growth. But a new working paper for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University finds that these regulations are even more costly than the sum of their parts.

Using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Census Bureau and a special database that quantifies regulatory restrictions by industry, the authors found that regulation reduced average annual economic growth by 0.8 percent. By 2012, added regulations had cost the economy about $4 trillion a year in foregone growth — nearly $13,000 per person.

Interestingly, the cumulative effect of regulations is greater than the total of each individual regulation’s cost.

“By altering investment decisions and disrupting the innovation that comes from investment in knowledge creation, regulations have a cumulative and detrimental effect on economic growth — and, impact American families and workers,” the authors concluded.

When considering the costs of additional regulation on innovation and economic growth, we must be mindful not only of the administrative costs, regulatory costs and opportunity costs, but also the extra costs of regulatory accretion. The corollary is that reducing regulations and eliminating duplicative and conflicting regulations would free up resources to stoke innovation and productivity and grow.

Let the cutting of the red tape begin!

—The Orange County (Calif.) Register

Sweeping declarations that challenge the status quo rarely go over well in this country. Change, even for the right reasons, even to ensure the civil rights that Americans hold so dear, rarely comes easily.

So it is with the Obama administration’s directive to every public school district in the country Friday about how transgender students should be treated — or else.

In a strongly worded letter, Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said schools must allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity, not require them to bathrooms that match their gender at birth or single-stall bathrooms when other students aren’t required to do the same.

The directive doesn’t carry the force of law, but it carries the fear of decimated budgets. Schools that don’t comply could lose billions in federal education funding. Just ask North Carolina.

The backlash, unsurprisingly, has been swift. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called it the biggest issue “since prayer was taken out of public schools.” Republicans in other Southern and Midwestern states, where bills targeting gay and transgender people have been popping up with frightening regularity, are up in arms, too. Lawsuits will surely follow.

Fear of change is powerful. So is ignorance.

That’s why Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in a powerful speech to announce the federal government’s countersuit against North Carolina, was right to draw parallels to the racially separate-but-equal bathrooms of the Jim Crow era.

No matter what happens in court, the Obama administration was right to act. This is about more than bathrooms. It’s about guaranteeing civil rights and encouraging acceptance for yet another group of Americans that has waited far too long for both.

—The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee