Small businesses spend 36 more per employee than large Corps complying with new federal rules
By Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. President Barack Obama last week cited bad luck" as the reason that economic recovery is not happening. Does this mean the American people and their elected officials are merely helpless pawns at the mercy of a stubborn strain of bad luck? For the past 30 months unemployment has been at 8 or higher.
Recent indicators point to jobless numbers even higher than the current 9.1 in coming months.
So whats to blame for joblessness in America: bad luck or bad policies? Look no further than the mammoth fortress of federal regulatory agencies.
Though private businesses have struggled to create jobs under Obama one sector in particular has experienced explosive growth: the federal governments regulatory agencies.
In the past three years the U.S. economy has grown at an anemic 5.
The budget growth for federal regulatory agencies in contrast was 16.
If the federal governments regulatory operation were a business" Investors Business Daily reported it would be one of the 50 biggest in the country in terms of revenues and the third-largest in terms of employees with more people working for it than McDonalds Ford Disney and Boeing combined."
Though we are only seven months into 2011 there has been an avalanche of 677 new regulatory rules proposed or enacted and more than 50000 pages of new regulations added to the Federal Register. The cost of these new regulatory burdens translates to a staggering $60.9 billion.
With each new rule and page added to the Federal Register business suffers. Complying with the governments new regulations increases the costs of providing goods and services making it more difficult to pay current employees much less create new jobs.
Is it any wonder that business investment has ground to a halt?
While no business or industry is unscathed by the onslaught of new regulations small businesses have been hardest hit. Small companies according to the
Small Business Administration now spend 36 percent more
per employee than large corporations to comply with these new
federal rules. Consider small businesses are the largest employers nationally creating two out of every three new jobs.
Nonetheless the Obama administration remains tone-deaf to this statistic produced by its own agency.
From new rules for greenhouse gas emissions which will likely drive up electricity costs; to a virtual halt on energy development in the U.S. which will drive the price of gasoline even higher; to an unprecedented move to prohibit investments in new manufacturing plants in right-to-work states like Texas these endless reams of federal red tape threaten the loss of 11.4 million private sector jobs in America.
Many of the Whites Houses job-killing policies like cap and trade which were blocked by Congress are also now being enacted by political appointees and unelected bureaucrats through regulatory fiat.
You may not be able to find a price tag for new regulations in the federal budget but we all are picking up the tab in the form of fewer jobs and higher costs. This year alone regulations are projected to cost U.S. taxpayers $2.8 trillion.
This cost translates into 77 days of labor this year for the average worker. Think about it: The American people work more than two months a year just to pay the bills for rules enacted by unelected bureaucrats at government agencies.
Americans continue to suffer persistently high unemployment investor and consumer confidence has hit historic lows and the specter of a double-dip recession looms. Thats why it is essential that the president and Congress act immediately to halt all new regulations and eliminate current regulations holding back job creators.
For example Congress first act of business after the August recess should be to pass
the Regulation Moratorium & Job Preservation Act (which I co-sponsored). The bill is designed to place a moratorium on burdensome federal regulations until the national unemployment rate falls to 7.7 percent below where it was when Obama took office.
What ails the U.S. economy is not bad luck but rather bad policy. Are the
trillions of dollars in federal deficits higher taxes on businesses and workers tens of thousands of paralyzing pages of new federal regulations and a government takeover of Americans health care all a matter of bad luck? Certainly not.
I am willing to bet that when our policies start changing our luck will improve.
