Federal Regulations Cost U.S. $2 Trillion Per Year, Study Shows
Federal regulations imposed on America have been costing the U.S. economy more than $2 trillion every year and growing, according to a new study that sought to quantify the economic damage inflicted by Washington, D.C., politicians and bureaucrats. That drag represents well over 10 percent of GDP, the report said. Especially burdened under the perpetually expanding regulatory regime are manufacturers and small businesses — two of the key sectors urgently needed to drive employment, growth, and exports amid ballooning U.S. trade and budget deficits. The most harmful and costly regulations and decrees, researchers found, surround alleged “environmental” issues.
The shocking study, entitled “The Cost of Federal Regulation to the U.S. Economy, Manufacturing, and Small Business,” only looked at the economic damage inflicted through the year 2012. In recent years, though, the Obama administration — the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in particular — has unveiled an avalanche of new decrees set to wreak even more havoc on the fragile and embattled U.S. economy. In other words, the cost of federal regulations in 2014 is undoubtedly higher. Over the last decade alone, more than 37,000 federal regulations have been imposed on the American people and their businesses.
Almost 90 percent of manufacturers surveyed said they view regulatory compliance as a “top business challenge.” The pace and burden of the decrees, meanwhile, is still accelerating, with the Obama administration adding an almost unimaginable 11,000 pages of regulations in just his first three years in office. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the trade organization that commissioned the recently released report, said it was time for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to come together and fix the system before it inflicts further damage.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/item/19116-federal-regulations-cost-u-s-2-trillion-per-year-study-shows
.png){kind=icon}
