Is regulatory red-tape strangling small business?

I believe the answer is, and has been, "yes!" and this is unfortunately supported by the latest statistics on federal government regulations.

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA) the current annual cost to businesses to be compliant with federal regulations is $1.75 Trillion. While some regulation is necessary this is money that businesses don't put into expanding or hiring additional employees. In addition, the number of new regulations under the current administration is growing at a rate 50% higher than in the past. There have been over 500 new laws added in just the last two years. This has resulted in the cost of new regulations increasing from $10.5B in 2008 to $26.5B in 2010. What all this boils down to is that if you are a small business with fewer than 20 employees it's costing you about $10K per employee just to be compliant with all the regulations; the highest cost per employee in our history.

In addition to the actual dollar cost the greatest impact of all these new laws is uncertainty as to how the regulations being written to implement these laws will impact the small business owner and their business' bottom line. This again leads to a "wait and see" approach rather than going forward with business expansion and hiring.