Is Obama sabotaging Trump? Obama issued 3,853 new regulations in 2016 alone

Trump vows repeal.

Is Obama sabotaging Trump's presidency? Obama has ordered an average of 18 new regulations for every law passed by Congress.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- President Obama has issued 3,852 new federal regulations in response to just 211 laws passed by Congress. It can be argued that both numbers are too high, but with an average of 18 new regulations for every law passed by Congress, it raises the question of what Obama thinks he's doing?

While Congress passes laws, the enforcement of those laws is the business of the executive branch. The various executive agencies have discretion as to how they will enforce them. Normally, this happens with each agency employing their experts to decide what will work best. But the president does have the authority to issue specific orders to the executive agencies, and this is where his regulations come in.

A president can even create regulations that make it difficult to enforce a law, which is one way a president can push back against Congress. For example, Obama can suspend the enforcement of certain immigration laws.

Such actions have political consequences, and the president can be sued, but sometimes this is more effort than it is worth, or will take so long to resolve that nobody bothers to challenge the regulations.

Unfortunately, the issuance of new regulations is a burden as each regulation generates pages of rules and other documents. The Federal Register set a record for 2016, printing 97,110 pages.

More regulation makes the management of government more difficult. It also makes the entire federal system more complex. Eventually, systems become so complex they no longer work.

Is this what's driving Obama? Is he complicating the system so much it will be difficult for Trump to govern?

Trump has already vowed to repeal most if not all of Obama's orders and regulations. He has also pledged a pruning of regulations, deleting two regulations for every new one passed. The simplifying government will make the system more efficient.

But laws are passed to fix problems, generally speaking. A simple legal code is easy to follow, but it can become difficult to enforce as people find clever means to circumvent the law, making new laws necessary.

In the meantime, Obama continues to order new regulations. There remain two more weeks until Trump's presidential inauguration.