The founder of Home Depot comments on the new jobs commission:

Half of all American workers are employed at a small business and they have generated two out of three new jobs over the last 15 years. We can’t have a serious conversation about reducing unemployment without listening to the companies that aren’t on the Fortune 500 list. Overregulation, unfair taxes, and new mandates, like the controversial healthcare bill, are choking these job-creating businesses before they can get off the ground…

From the EPA to the FDA, from the IRS to Sarbanes Oxley, regulations disproportionally affect the smallest firms, drowning America’s entrepreneurs in red tape. According to a study published last year by the Small Business Administration, firms with fewer than 20 employees spend 36 percent more per employee than large firms.

Regulations, on average, cost small firms $10,585 per employee each year: $4,120 to comply with economic regulations, $4,101 to comply with environmental regulations, $1,585 to comply with complex tax rules, and $781 to comply with OSHA and homeland security regulations. In fact, more than 144,000 pages of regulations strangle small and large businesses alike.

At the end of a rather long piece on banking the other day, we paused to note the horror stories from directors of small companies about Sarbanes Oxley. The deck is stacked against the core strengths of American business; meanwhile, the government class continues to feed at the trough. No way to run a country.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 at 11:38 am and is filed under business, China, Democrats, EU, General, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.