Since its founding, America has been a beacon for entrepreneurship. In no other place on the planet do people have the freedom to take a great idea and grow it into a business the way they do in the United States. Slowly but surely that has been changing as the role of Big Government has grown in our lives.
Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Allie cartoons)
Roadblocks to innovation have been thrown up through unnecessary red tape and regulation by the government. Back in January, President Obama appeared to realize this when he authored an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal saying, “…rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business – burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs.” However, as with many other instances in his failed presidency, President Obama’s actions have not matched his words.
Last week the Obama Administration announced a tepid plan to cut some regulations at a savings of $10 billion over five years. In response, Speaker of the House John Boehner sent a letter to President Obama – who was wrapping up his Martha’s Vineyard vacation – which pointed out how weak the cuts are. The letter stated, “This year the Administration’s current regulatory agenda identifies 219 planned new regulations that have estimated annual costs in excess of $100 million each. That’s almost a 15 percent increase over last year, and appears to contradict public suggestions by the Administration this week that the regulatory burden on American job creators is scaled back.”
Another problem with Obama’s plan to save $10 billion over a 5 year period: in July The Heritage Foundation pegged 75 new regulations costing $38 billion annually since the Obama Administration took the reins of power in January 2009. This gap is even more eye opening when you add the new Obama regulations on top of the ones that have already been on the books. According to a Small Business Administration (SBA) report released last year, federal regulations cost businesses a jobs-busting $1.75 trillion a year even before President Obama stepped into the Oval Office. Federal regulation has run amok for years, suffocating small businesses and job growth with red tape.
With a 9.1 percent unemployment rate, serious regulatory reform needs to happen. Small businesses are America’s economic engines but with needless regulations and bureaucratic hoops to jump through business growth comes to a screeching halt. I wonder how many jobs would have been saved if regulatory burdens were cut by even a trillion dollars?
What President Obama proposed last week does not solve the problem and is simply the same old smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand he perpetrated upon the American people during the Obamacare and debt ceiling debates. President Obama continues to propose and create new regulations that will crush businesses and job growth. In fact, when you look at what is coming down the pike, even more regulations will be implemented thanks to Obamacare and CAFE fuel mandates, among other job stifling regulations.
The economy grew at a snail’s pace in the second quarter and the increase in Gross Domestic Product was revised down from 1.3 percent to 1 percent. With the economy so fragile, the last thing we need is more government interference. Big Government has always been detrimental to the American dream but President Obama has taken Big Government to a whole new level at the worst possible time. The American people must stand up to this excessive and burdensome government regulation and reclaim the spirit of free enterprise passed down to us from our Founding Fathers. 2012 cannot come soon enough.
