Dispatches from the Road: American Job Creators

Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has been hammering the administration about the fact that over regulation is cyanide to job creation. He now has a team from the committee’s American Job Creators initiative out pounding the pavement to talk to real small business people to ask them about what regulation is doing to them. Presented here for your consideration, the first of their dispatches from the road:

Yesterday the White House announced a host of initiatives designed to save American businesses $10 billion over five years. The target for the savings? Overly burdensome federal government regulations, which cost small business owners as much as $10,500 per employee. The news is welcome for job creators struggling to survive in the Obama Economy, and shows that months of House Republican efforts to shine a light on these job killers are yielding gains for American families and businesses.

Federal government regulations – also known as red tape – are rules Washington forces taxpayers and businesses to live by. Every aspect of daily life – from fueling cars to growing food and making toys – is governed by more than 150,000 pages of federal fine print. Playing by these confusing rules drained at least $1.75 trillion from our economy in 2008, according to the Small Business Administration. If families paid an equal share of the regulatory burden, they’d be hit with a $15,586 bill, dwarfing the $10,000 families spent on health care in 2008.

Taxpayers deserve better from their government. Especially when nearly 14 million Americans can’t find jobs. It’s our mission on the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to expose the true costs of government red tape, hold regulators accountable to taxpayers, and deliver effective rules of the road that actually make sense for American families and businesses.

The first step is finding the facts. That’s why Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) launched AmericanJobCreators.com: to listen directly to job creation experts. This week, we’re on the back roads of California to visit some of the nearly 1,500 small business owners who have shared their stories through the platform.

Though the Obama Administration yesterday acknowledged entrepreneurs deserve relief from job killing federal regulations, there’s much more red tape to cut so that American small businesses are free to grow again. Stay tuned for updates.

-Team Oversight

Are you a business owner paying the cost of government regulation? Visit AmericanJobCreators.com right now to speak out.