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Untitled document
By Congressman Charles F. Bass
For NH Patch websites, August 3, 2012
There has been a lot of talk in Washington recently about reducing regulatory red tape to allow for economic growth. There are just too many regulations that are an unreasonable and excessive burden on businesses, stifle job creation, and make our economy less competitive while providing no real benefit to the business or society.
Unfortunately, as any job creator or employee knows, it is a lot easier for government to add layers of red tape than it is to remove them. However, I am focused on finding real solutions to the problem of overregulation and am working to get beyond the political talking points and help those that are essential to growing our economy.
As someone who has run a small business and experienced the real challenges of matching accounts payable and accounts receivable, making sure that employees are paid and have access to benefits, I understand that excessive regulations can hinder our nation's job creators and economic growth.
I am constantly visiting businesses throughout New Hampshire and talking with owners and their employees to learn about the issues facing them and how my work fighting Washington bureaucratic red tape can help them focus on growing a business and creating more jobs instead of where the correct place to hang a government-required poster is. As estimated by the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses spend, on average, $10,585 per employee per year to comply with regulations - 36 percent more than larger businesses. This is unacceptable.
Whether it's a regulation relating to the size of print on shipping materials, a regulation restricting the availability of skilled workers for our seasonal employers, or regulations requiring an endless amount of permits and licensing to begin or stop anything that you do, sometimes even the best-intentioned policies have unintended, harmful economic consequences.
What is clear is that we should not regulate our small businesses out of existence, and that is why I support and have voted for bipartisan reforms. These include requiring federal agencies to analyze fully the impact that a new regulation would have on small businesses before the agency adopts the regulation, and the adoption of the least costly alternative unless a cost-benefit analysis shows the merit of the more expensive regulation.
While certain regulations are needed for safety and fairness, there are even more that are unnecessary and negatively impact job and economic growth. Working together, we can find even more common-sense solutions that will help reduce the burden on small businesses, eliminate red-tape and help get our economy back in order.
Congressman Charles F. Bass represents New Hampshire's Second District in Congress. You can contact him here.
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