“When I started the business, I’d very rarely ever get some information from the government that I had to really pay that much attention to,” David Cranston, president of Cranston Material Handling Equipment Corp. of Pittsburgh, says in a new Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations video.
“It now seems like every week I am receiving some kind of documentation or something that need to be filed. … It costs us tens of thousands dollars a year to comply,” he adds.
Cranston’s plea for relief from federal regulations is just one of more than a dozen stories that can be heard at sensibleregulations.org, a project of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
In all, more than 950 small businesses from six states have joined the Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations coalition, and 50 of them released an open letter to President Obama on Tuesday calling for a halt on new regulations until the federal regulatory process is reformed.
The letter also outlined five principles that should guide the Obama administration’s regulatory review: 1) a greater voice for small business; 2) assistance for small businesses before penalties; 3) cost-benefit analysis for every regulation; 4) regulations based on data and science; and 5) more transparency and accountability.
“These are things the Obama administration can do immediately to help job creation,” former Arkansas Sen. and Coalition Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln told The Washington Examiner. “One of the best ways we can help small businesses create jobs is to lessen the uncertainty they have in terms of regulation.”
A poll released last week by Gallup backs up Lincoln’s analysis. When asked, “What do you think is the most important problem facing small business owners like you today?” “complying with federal regulations” was the most popular response.
According to the NFIB, small business account for two-thirds of the net jobs created each year, 60 percent of all private-sector jobs in the country and 50 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.
Lincoln also noted that there are more than 4,200 new regulations pending at the federal level and that many of these regulations would disproportionately hurt smaller firms.
“Small businesses just do not have the resources to invest in a team of 12 lawyers to comply with all these regulations,” Lincoln said.
A 2010 Small Business Administration study found that it costs $3,000 more per employee for small businesses to comply with federal regulations than their larger counterparts.
Each of the six states represented by coalition member businesses (Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) is expected to be a major battleground state in the 2012 presidential election.
“Continued escalation of regulations will push companies like mine to a point where we simply can’t sell those types of jobs at a profit anymore,” said coalition member Tim Englert, owner of Englert Construction in Akron, Ohio. “I came to D.C. to make sure this message is being heard.”
NFIB hopes more business owners like Englert share their stories with voters in key 2012 swing states. The sensibleregulations.org website enables small-business owners to submit their own stories about how federal regulations are affecting their business.
In his video, Cranston explains how the 2006 Pension Protection Act quadrupled his filing and paperwork requirements. “Government mandates and regulations are taking my time that I could be spending working with employees, working with customers, growing our business,” Cranston said.
Conn Carroll is a senior editorial writer for The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
