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Dr. Boozman's Check-up

I wanted to highlight the aptly named Regulatory Time-Out Act, which is the subject of this story in this morning’s edition of The Hill newspaper.  I am a cosponsor of this bill, which establishes a one-year moratorium on any significant federal regulation, essentially any rule costing more than $100 million per year.

Why is this important?

Regulations imposed by the Obama administration are hurting our economy, hampering job growth and forcing businesses to comply with burdensome rules that bypass Congressional approval.  When you don’t know the rules of the game, you can’t win it.  This is just as true in the business world.  If business owners don’t know what their tax rates and energy, healthcare and compliance costs are going to be, then the last thing they are going to do is rush out and hire a bunch of people.

Last year, the Obama Administration finalized 3,573 new rules.  And it is only getting worse in 2011.

In two months during the summer of 2011, the Obama Administration proposed 1225 regulations at a cost of $17.7 billion.  The Obama Administration regulatory agenda for 2011 contains 219 proposed rules that that have an economic cost of over $1 billion each.

The regulatory uncertainty needs to end before a real economic recovery can start.  At the very least, we need a “time-out” from the red tape.