March 4,
2015 (Lansing) – The state’s leading small business organization,
the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), urged the House
Regulatory Reform Committee today to look for ways to pursue common sense and
reform at the state level in order to get ahold of a growing problem for small
business.
“The regulatory
climate is one of the key factors in the overall business climate of the state
and nation,” said NFIB State Director Charlie Owens. “We cannot overestimate
the importance of this committee in that regard.”
Owens told
the committee that small business is more susceptible to the costs of
regulation simply because of economies of scale as most small businesses do not
have the staff to keep up – and in compliance with – the rules and regulations
that seem to proliferate in today’s business environment.
As an
example of the magnitude of regulatory overload Owens provided the committee
with data that showed that, in just the one week before the hearing, there were
65 final rules published, 48 proposed rules and 1,715 pages of rules added to
the Federal Register. For 2015 Year to Date (2-27) there were 416 final rules
published, 327 proposed rules and 11,059 pages of rules added to the Federal
Register.
“Keep in
mind that this is cumulative and the annual outflow of more than 3,500 final federal
rules—sometimes far above that level—means that 87,282 federal rules have been issued
since 1993,” said Owens. “There were 51 rules for every law Congress passed in
2013.”
Owens went
on to discuss studies by various organizations that put a price tag of $10,585
per employee on the cost to business in keeping up with regulations and rules. “While
we can debate the numbers, there is no doubt that regulatory bloat is real and
has real, albeit hidden, costs to our economy in jobs, income and misallocated
resources,” said Owens. “Keep also in mind that the data presented here is for
federal regulations ONLY and does not include the additional layers of state
and local regulation.”
