Congressman Cantor Statement on Middle-Class Jobs and the Obama Administration’s Underwhelming Regulatory Review

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Eric Cantor (VA-07) today issued the following statement regarding the Obama Administration's Regulatory Review Plans (today, the OMB had a conference call on the matter):

“For the last several years, we’ve seen that the threat of more taxation, more regulation, and more litigation will not create more middle-class jobs – in fact, they destroy them. During his State of the Union Address, the President announced a top to bottom review to ‘merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America.’ He said that he ordered a review of government regulations, and pledged, ‘when we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them.’ I applauded the President’s steps to finally work to help businesses create jobs. Unfortunately, eight months later, the President’s rhetoric has not led to real results, and tens of millions of Americans remain unemployed. 

“Today the White House announced the outcome of its government wide review, and the results are underwhelming. Every day, business people and job creators cope with burdensome regulations that have a negative impact on both jobs and our economy, and again the President seems reluctant to do everything in his power to help them. Speeches and editorials are not enough to help real job creators in America - small business owners - create middle-class jobs. Action is needed - which is why we must remove onerous federal regulations that are redundant, harmful to small businesses, and impede private sector investment and job creation. 

“Next month, the House will continue our jobs focus and pursue a legislative agenda that boosts economic growth through reducing the regulatory and tax burden. We will make sure that Washington policies are less restrictive to businesses small and large by requiring a congressional review and approval of any proposed federal government regulation that will have a significant impact on the economy. Further, we will repeal the ‘3 percent withholding rule,’ which serves as an unnecessary tax increase on those who do business with the government, and overturn several of EPA’s proposed regulations that inhibit jobs in areas as varied as cement and farm dust. We will stop the overreach of the National Labor Relations Board, and we will ensure a complete, publicly available analysis of the impact that regulations have on consumers and small businesses. These are common-sense steps that should be enacted on a bipartisan basis and I call upon the President to focus on unemployed people and middle-class job creation before politics and ideology, and he can start by working with us to tackle America’s job crisis."  

NOTE: Yesterday, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, Congressman Cantor announced that the House will pursue a legislative agenda that boosts economic growth through reducing the regulatory and tax burden.