Just a couple of points here. The $trillions thier sitting on are primarily overseas. And to make it worse we’re talking about the large international corporations. According to the SBA the regulatory burden falls disproportionately on small businesses. Regulation is costing us more than $1,75 Trillion each year. That works out to over $15,000 per household. The cost to small business is over $10,000 per employee. And remember that this cost does absolutely nothing to improve your product or service, it merely covers the compliance cost.
Let’s look at how regulation works. If you are planning to start or expand a business, you have to consider both current regulation and proposed or possible regulation. And unless you have a lot of money, you don’t even know what regulation may come down on you. A quick example. I was replacing the bulbs in my florescent light back in June. I was a little short on bulbs so I went to order some more. It urns out that the bulbs I need are no longer made. They were eliminated in the legislation that bans 100 watt incandescent lights. You can imagine my surprise. Since My lights use a ballast, I can’t just replace the bulbs I have to replace the entire light fixtures for the entire store (including the lights on cooler doors, etc. Not a minor change, I’m guessing $20K but I don’t have the estimate yet. Now this legislation was passed in 2007 so Bush signed it but remember the Democrats had taken congress by that time so I blame them. Whoever you blame, the results are the same, I take a major hit that I didn’t see coming.
Just a couple more points that should be registered. Oil refineries are shutting down a result of regulation or the fear of it. Dodd-Frank is crippling the smaller community banks driving them out of business. The average American doesn’t see what the impact of these regulations will have. It’s easy to argue how good you think regulation is when you neither know or have to pay the price. Let those rich businesses pay it.