Wisconsin has over 400,000 small businesses, which employ over 50 percent of Wisconsinites. When government bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. write overly burdensome regulations it is these small businesses, and the hard working taxpayers they employ, who are hit the hardest.
Make no mistake: Regulations are important. They help protect our health, safety, and well-being; and they provide firm rules for us to live by. But taken beyond their initial purpose—and to an extreme—regulations can result in a system that favors big government and big business over hardworking Wisconsinites.
In 2016 alone, the Obama Administration issued more than 3,800 regulations, over 600 of which were, “flagged by agencies as having notable effects on small businesses.”
Today the House acted to reverse that trend by passing the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. The REINS Act—a key component in the House Republican agenda, A Better Way— would ensure Congress has an up-or-down vote on any major regulation that would have an annual economic impact of $100 million or more.
The idea behind this bill is simple: If a regulation from a federal agency is going to have a major impact on the economy, then Congress—the people’s duly elected representatives—ought to have a say.
This is legislation that is supported by our incoming president as we work to stop Washington from strangling job creation through burdensome regulation.
And that’s just what the House did today by passing the REINS Act. This bill puts Wisconsinites and Americans all across the country, not Washington bureaucrats, at the center of the rule-making process.
