Senator Ron Johnson has released “Victims of Government”; a project dedicated to exposing the unintended consequences of federal regulations.
The Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy estimates that it costs Americans $1.75 trillion to comply with federal regulations each year. To put $1.75 trillion into perspective, that amount is larger than all but eight economies in the world. It also means that over 10% of the U.S. economy is spent on trying to satisfy rules issued by Washington bureaucrats. That doesn’t even include federal, state, and local taxes.
This heavy regulatory burden diverts resources from innovation to compliance, discourages business investment, and chills job creation. It is no accident that as Washington adds new regulations, more and more Americans are unemployed and underemployed.
Elected leaders need to carefully consider the costs and negative unintended consequences of unnecessary federal regulations. They need to remember that real people must comply with these regulations and that making them overly burdensome stifles American growth. This blog features just some of the victims of government.
According to the study commissioned by the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, “had every U.S. household paid an equal share of the federal regulatory burden, each would have owed $15,586 in 2008.”
Cause of Action is well aware of how the federal government can clamp down on economic opportunity. We represent Drakes Bay Oyster Company; a small, family-run, sustainable oyster farm located in Point Reyes National Seashore in a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior (DOI). DOI is using bad science to make false claims about the oyster company’s impact on the environment. If Interior succeeds, 30 jobs would be destroyed, and 40 percent of California’s oyster market would disappear. Most recently, Drakes Bay Oyster Company has been granted an emergency Injunction pending appeal keeping the farm open until the 9th circuit rules on DBOC’s injunction appeal.
