Regulation, for example occupational licensing of jobs, has become much more prevalent. 60 years ago, only 5% of the workforce was occupationally licensed, now it is 25%.* There is a bipartisan push to reduce occupational licensing, and recognize licenses across state lines. So not irrational, unsubstantiated, partisan, or ideological.
*https://documents.ncsl.org/wwwncsl/Labor/NCSL_DOL_Report_05_...
The ideological part comes in when you immediately choose to stop your analysis here. This is known as "playing stupid".
Why has licensure increased in the past 60 years? What were the motivations?
And, if we remove some licensing, how can we be sure the motivation does not come back? What is the ROOT CAUSE?
It's entirely possible that we can get rid of the regulation, have a bunch of bad things happen, pay stupid amounts of money to fix those bad things, and then re-implement the regulation - thereby spending more money than if we just did nothing at all and kept things as they are.
I agree, but it is equally idealogical to clean there is no rational basis for the idea that regulation increases costs. It is equally idealogical to stop at your analysis at "if we remove these regulations something bad will happen, so let's not remove any regulations".