By Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) Rep.
...In his first term alone, President Obama has finalized 130 major rules, a shocking 160 percent increase over the previous term under President George W. Bush. This alarming growth in government is an assault on our free enterprise system and on our individual liberties. Either the President is not interested in keeping the America's people's trust, or he simply does not have a handle on his own Federal agencies. Given recent events, either of these could very well be true.
The truth, however, Mr. Speaker, is that cost from new regulatory burdens on Americans increased by nearly $70 billion during President Obama's first term in office, which is based on his own agency's estimates. It is very possible that the real costs far exceed this number. With major regulations in Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare still yet to be implemented, these burdens on small businesses and the American people will only skyrocket.
Andy Barr (R-KY)
...We have seen persistent high unemployment in our country for the last 5 years. We got another bad jobs report just last week: 7.6 percent is the unemployment rate. But even more alarming than our persistent high unemployment rate is the fact that we have underemployment in this country. Only 58 percent of the American people who are eligible for employment who are of working-age population are actually employed. Only 58 percent.
Yes, we have a high unemployment rate. Yes, it has been persistently over 7.5 percent for the last 5 years. But even more troubling is the fact that only 58 percent of working-age people in this country are employed. That is 5 percent below the average employment rate for working-age people prior to the recession, and that number has been static for the last 5 years. So the question we have to ask ourselves is why is this happening; why are the American people not getting back to work.
Well, one of the primary impediments to economic recovery, to job growth, and job creation is the avalanche of new rules, regulations, and red tape coming out of Washington, all of which impose huge costs on businesses and create a destructive environment of uncertainty in the private sector. And it affects virtually every sector of our economy. It affects the health care sector with ObamaCare and the reams of regulations coming out of HHS. It affects the financial services industry with Dodd-Frank and all of the rulemakings. You know, Dodd-Frank authorizes over 400 new rules and regulations. A little more than half of those have been issued. According to certain estimates, compliance with those regulations equals about 24 million hours annually in man-hours to comply with the Dodd-Frank rules and regulations. To put that in perspective, 20 million man-hours was what was required to build the Panama Canal. This is literally an avalanche of rules and regulations crushing our financial institutions and impeding access to credit for entrepreneurs and small businesses. It's affecting the energy sector where environmental regulations are destroying jobs.
Doug Collins (R-GA)
...I'm just going to spend a few minutes here tonight talking about that. It is troubling in a time where families are struggling to make ends meet, American families are paying almost $15,000 per year in hidden regulatory taxes. They are paying $14,678 in hidden regulatory taxes. You want to know how that affects you. That's going on and you want to know how we're causing people to spend and we're also at the same time saying we want to create new jobs, we want to create new opportunities.
Well, here's what happens. Instead of paying a hidden regulatory tax, American families could, one, buy a new car. A 2013 Ford Fiesta, $13,200; a 2013 Chevrolet Sonic, $14,185. We hear it all the time how manufacturing creates jobs on all levels, starting from the manufacturing, from the parts and the dealers and the auto parts that come into this, how they all work together.
Well, instead of paying these regulatory costs, why don't we get them to buy a new car? I mean, I think that's what the American people would like. I think that's what our auto dealers would like. That's what the others in the chain of automotive supply would like. But, instead, they're trapped and they're bound.
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