How many times have we heard this rhetoric from big
businesses opposing new regulations while pretending that they are concerned
about small businesses? Yet polls of
small business owners find that most understand the need for regulations.
I outlined the results of one of these recent polls
in an opinion
editorial in The Hill. The poll was conducted
by Lake Research for three national business organizations, one of which is the
American Sustainable Business Council (I serve as the Co-Chair of the Action
Fund for the ASBC). A summary of this
poll is below.
But first, let’s look at how accurate the predictions have
been of jobs to be lost from the passage of past “job-killing regulations”.
A new
report released today by Public Citizen reviews 8 major regulations that
have been implemented since the 1970’s.
Industry representatives directly impacted by these regulations
predicted that if these regulations were put into effect, up to 55 million
American jobs would be lost
These predictions included 1.5 million jobs to be lost due
to requiring cars to get better fuel economy.
Up to 2 million jobs were predicted to be lost because of amendments to
the Clean Air Act. Forty-Three million
jobs were supposed to be lost due to banning the use of lead in gasoline. Public Citizen reviews these predictions and
contrasts them with what really happened after each new regulation went into
effect. It’s a fun read.
Did we actually lose up to 55 million jobs due to these 8
regulations? Of course not. It is a frightening prediction. But the 55 million predicted lost jobs is
actually nearly 5 times greater than the current number of unemployed in this
country, 11.3 million.
Are there too many people unemployed in this
country? Of course. Are these 11.3 million unemployed due to the
8 regulations (or any regulations) reviewed by Public Citizen? Absolutely not.
Yet the “job-killing regulations” fear mongering goes on today
even though history has shown us that we should take these scare tactics with a
mountain of salt.
Here is an excerpt from my opinion
editorial on the small business owners poll on regulations that I mentioned
above:
Contrary to anti-regulations rhetoric, 78 percent of
small business owners see government standards as an important tool to level
the playing field with big business and 86 percent view regulations as a
necessary component of a modern economy: 93 percent agreed that their business
could live with fair regulations and 78 percent agree that some standards are
important to protect small businesses from unfair competition. Moreover, 76
percent said that regulations on the books should be enforced.
Small business owners express strong support for specific
rules and standards:• 84 percent support food safety standards
• 80 percent support product safety standards
• 80 percent support disclosure and regulation of toxic materials
• 79 percent support ensuring clean air and water
• 78 percent support rules to prevent health insurance companies from increasing rates excessively
• 67 percent support rules to curtail financial speculation by Wall Street and banks.
• 61 percent support moving the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy.
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