Even Dems Think Obama’s Regulations are Stupid

When you’re trying to help the economy recover, the smartest thing to do would be to make it as easy as possible for Americans to start and run their own small businesses, no? I mean, look, if corporate America isn’t hiring and the government can’t afford the workers it has now, the only option is to help Joe Six-Pack expand his dry cleaning business in the middle of Nebraska, because, let’s face it, he’s the only one actually working in this economy.

But noooooooooooooo.

“When I started the business, I’d very rarely ever get some information from the government that I had to really pay that much attention to,” David Cranston, president of Cranston Material Handling Equipment Corp. of Pittsburgh, says in a new Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations video.

“It now seems like every week I am receiving some kind of documentation or something that need to be filed. … It costs us tens of thousands dollars a year to comply,” he adds.

Cranston’s plea for relief from federal regulations is just one of more than a dozen stories that can be heard at sensibleregulations.org, a project of the National Federation of Independent Businesses…According to the NFIB, small business account for two-thirds of the net jobs created each year, 60 percent of all private-sector jobs in the country and 50 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.

These guys went to Washington this week to explain to Congress, slowly and carefully, that regulations are going to put them out of business, thus ensuring that an economic recovery never happens. And their fearless leader? Former Democratic Senator from Arkansas Blanche Lincoln. Yes, that Blanche Lincoln. She’s the one attempting to inform Congress that the 4,200 regulations they have in the hopper, ready to hit small businesses like an OccupyOakland brick through their window, are going to really screw things up. She’s even op-edding against it in Politico. Apparently, someone thought that if they put someone who “speaks Democrat” at the forefront, the message that all of the extra cash it costs small businesses to operate with this regulation-happy Congress would get through their thick little skulls.

Lincoln also noted that there are more than 4,200 new regulations pending at the federal level and that many of these regulations would disproportionately hurt smaller firms.

“Small businesses just do not have the resources to invest in a team of 12 lawyers to comply with all these regulations,” Lincoln said.

A 2010 Small Business Administration study found that it costs $3,000 more per employee for small businesses to comply with federal regulations than their larger counterparts.

Obviously, the message fell on deaf ears. But Blanche and her merry crew have a list of possible changes Congress could make without sacrificing their re-election campaigns, to help small businesses grow and thrive. They may take them, they may not, but at least someone’s doing something.

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