Saturday, August 6, 2011

Bloated government is terrorizing U.S. job market



Years ago, if you wanted to start or grow a business, you hired workers. Nowadays, the first people you hire are accountants and lawyers to deal with the avalanche of government regulations. Resources once used to pay and reward employees are diverted to proving to bureaucrats that you’re not dishonest. The rules are mind numbing and the big brother treatment is demoralizing.
Here is a smattering of the crud business people are forced to deal with:
Sarbanes Oxley (aka: the accountants full employment act) – a wet blanket of financial rules spread across everyone because some company, 20 years ago, ran afoul.
EPA – their threats force any organization using air, land or water to pay lawyers and engineers to chase rules written by lawyers and engineers with agendas.
Labor laws – hoards of new DOL agents enforce FLSA and other rules that no one understands. Labor unions demand that firemen remain on electric trains.
Retirement regs – more accountants filing more reports to more bureaucrats who can’t understand what they got.
Workers Comp and unemployment– squishy policies enforced by capricious officials encourage abuse.
Insurance – Premiums spread the burden of lawsuit abuse, and government mandates such as the latest preventative health rules, on everyone.
Obamacare – The mother lode of hidden taxes and ambiguity. The only thing that is certain is that we’ll all have universal coverage in a few years. It’s called Medicaid.
Industry specific rules – I am so glad I don’t have to deal with the banking regs. You should be glad you don’t have to deal with ED. Then there’s the FTC, DOC, HHS, FDA, ICE, NLRB and on and on.
Disclosures – does anyone read all the crap you get in the mail or with a contract? Talk about a waste of trees.
IRS – they will keep adding rules and agents until, one day, every citizen will be a criminal.
ADA, OSHA, EEOC – Unlimited cost of compliance and threats of claims.
Government employees – job security, raises, generous benefits… and police powers. I’ll bet an eye-popping percent of government workers are on disability (can’t take the heat, feel blue).
Wrongful dismissal , retaliation, discrimination – a lawyer’s paradise of high stakes ambiguity.
To increase jobs in the U.S. (and treasury revenues), we must reverse the suffocating burden of compliance to the ever growing heap of government regulations.

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