Time to Tackle the Hidden Tax of Regulation

If you have ever wondered why businesses are reluctant to add to their payroll, or expand read this. If you have ever wondered why all maufacturing is leaving our Country, read this. If you have ever wondered why our economy continues to shrink, read this.

Add to this though, state and local regulations and the costs associated with them. We have created an anti-business environment in this Country just to justify the existence of regulators.

I don't think anyone would suggest that we have no regulations on business. But regulations should serve a purpose other than ensuring the job of an unelected beauracrat. If you take a serious look, these unelected people that are creating and imposing regulations is a violation of our Constitution. Check out this article at the link below and be sure to read the comments... 

From Human Events

Republicans are hitting President Obama on his idiotic call for tax hikes as well as his avaricious appetite for increased government spending, as they should. But here’s a new target for them: The hidden tax of regulation.

A new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) titled “Ten Thousand Commandments” reveals the vast amount of private-sector capital drowned in the sea of government regulations.

The report’s conclusion is mind-boggling. The cost of complying with federal regulations has hit the $1.7 trillion dollar mark.

That’s trillion, with a T.

To put that number in perspective, it’s larger than the President’s own anticipated 2011 budget deficit of $1.6 trillion. In fact, the current regulatory burden imposed on businesses across America now amounts to 50% of total government spending in one year alone.

That’s nuts!

But guess what? We can top it.

As the CEI report underscores, the compliance cost of regulation is larger than all corporate pretax profits in 2008 and dwarfs the estimated 2010 individual income tax receipts by nearly 50%.

That last point is worth repeating: The cost of abiding by all the government regulations tallies up to $1.7 trillion, which towers over the revenue brought in by all income taxes, in every bracket.

We can also add that the compliance costs amount to more than $8,000 per American employee, but we’ll have to stop the comparisons there or else this editorial would rival Atlas Shrugged in length—but with statistics. Yikes!

So every time you hear some Democrat bemoan the ill-informed view that America is an underregulated society, tell them to put the above numbers in a pipe and smoke them.

Seriously. America is hamstrung by onerous regulation. That anyone can say otherwise defies belief. CEI notes that the Federal Register, which spells out all the government’s proposed and confirmed regulations, runs practically 25,000 pages—an increase of 26% over the last decade.

And thousands more rules are being proposed each year.

A true “stimulus” to the economy would be to relax much of these regulations and allow entrepreneurs and business owners to spend their capital on expansion and product innovation, rather than conforming to the obligations of some bureaucratic scheme. That’s not to say scrap all federal oversight, but the way things operate now, agencies are encouraged to brainstorm new policies without taking into account how they would negatively impact the economy.

It’s worth noting how the report “Ten Thousand Commandments” explains such perversity:

“Agencies face overwhelming incentives to expand their turf by regulating, even in the absence of demonstrated need, because the only measure of agency productivity—other than growth in their budgets and number of employees—is the number of regulations they produce.”

One step Congress can take immediately—and Republicans should adopt—is to arrest the power of unelected bureaucrats to codify these “commandments” in the first place. We can’t hold the troglodytes in the Environmental Protection Agency accountable for the laws they devise. But we can hold politicians accountable, which is why any proposed regulation by any federal agency that has any direct or indirect economic blow must be approved by Congress.

Sort of like, of the people, by the people.

Laffer Curve...

Have you ever heard of the Laffer Curve? I hadn't until several months ago. It's a little like the Bell Curve for grading in school, but this is for determining the optimal tax rate in an economy.

The Laffer Curve basically says that at 0 percent taxation the government gets $0 dollars in revenue, and at 100 percent taxation the government gets $0 dollars in revenue. At 100 percent taxation there is no incentive for people to earn money. Instead bartering and other means of trade take the place of cash transactions.

Based on those assumptions, there has to be a tax rate in between that keeps the people happy while generating the revenue government needs to function.

When Ronald Reagan took over after jimmy carter almost drove our economy into the ground, he used the Laffer Curve, in part, as a basis for dropping the highest marginal tax rate from 70 percent to 31 percent. It resulted in a massive increase in revenue to the federal government. Of course, congress continued to spend every single nickle that came in, and then some, so no surplus was ever attained.

It's hard to believe that taxing people LESS brings in MORE money, but it works. That isn't always the case, but historically in this Country it is very effective.

obama and his gang of thugs think that taxation is the key to solving our financial crisis. It isn't. Cutting spending is the first step. Reducing the size and influence of government is also a good step. Businesses have to have some freedom in order to be innovative. Innovation leads businesses to employ more people, more people paying a lower tax rate increases revenue to the government.

obama also talks constantly about the evil rich people. They don't pay their fair share. There are three points I would like to make about that.
1. The top 1 percent of wage earners in this Country pay 40 percent of the tax burden. Compare that to the bottom 45 percent who pay no taxes at all. Who is actually carrying the burden?

2. Rich people in this Country employ millions of people. The small business is the backbone of this Country. We are losing small businesses every day to uncertainty with the economy, over regulation, over taxation and just a general hostile environment created by this administration.

3. Companies and corporations don't pay tax. Sure, they may send money to the federal government, but they offset that money by increasing prices on goods and services or being unable to afford raises and other benefits for their employees.

One last thing, it is not evil for a company to make a profit. Profits mean more research and development which results in better products. It means raises for employees. It means charitable donations. It means putting more money back in to our economy.

obama is bad for our Nation. He is anti-American in every sense of the word. His plot to turn us into a third world nation is dangerous. His underhanded and dirty tactics should not be tolerated. The press in this Country have given him a free pass from the moment he emerged from the chicago slime. Will the press be as forgiving when he comes for them?

For more information on the Laffer Curve, and other examples, visit this link...