Authored by Phil Cohen
It is no secret that government regulations are making it very hard for small businesses to succeed. The National Association of Manufacturers and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (in addition to the Women Impacting Public Policy group) have created a campaign entitled “Rethink Red Tape.” The campaign calls upon the government to reform regulations to instead help small business to grow.
The issue that Rethink Red Tape brings up is cost. The amount of money that regulatory compliance costs to keep a small business up to date is skyrocketing. Ask any small business owner, and they will tell you that the hardest part about starting up is the complying with the expensive regulations. Keeping up with these regulations can freeze a small business and eventually lead to closure.
Rethink Red Tape’s goal is to keep small businesses around. With the help of many testimonials from small business owners, Rethink Red Tape is pushing to get government officials to jump on their cause. There are 56 million Americans who work for small businesses.
Rethink Red Tape plans to target 12 major states on its multi-year journey to educate the public about the risk that small businesses face.
Here is an excerpt taken from Rethink Red Tape on their 5 guiding principles for reform:
Engages the Public Early and Often: A fair rulemaking process is an inclusive one. It’s fundamental that community stakeholders, especially small business owners who will be directly impacted by regulations, have a seat at the table when rules are being written, evaluated and finalized.
Considers the Best Available Science: Solid, unbiased scientific information is key to developing smarter regulations. Utilizing balanced peer review and scientific advisory panels when evaluating rules will ensure outdated, partial or flawed studies don’t influence our public policies.
Weighs Cost-Benefit to the Community: Every regulation comes with a price tag, and those costs matter—especially to small businesses and local communities. New regulations should be connected to a compelling public need and be subject to an honest cost-benefit analysis so everyone can know the impact policies might have on local jobs and the small business economy.
Is Open, Honest and Understandable: Backroom negotiations, partisan rulemaking and bureaucratic decisions lead to confusion. An open and honest regulatory process will be easy for public stakeholders to understand and engage with and clear in its use of methods and data.
Evaluates the Outcomes: No regulation should live on forever if it isn’t working or is causing more problems than it solves. Policies should be regularly evaluated and measured to ensure they are actually providing the intended public benefit. When rules fail to meet intended goals or are shown to inflict more harm than good, they should be re-evaluated.
Small businesses are great aren’t they? Being a loyal customer to a small business will not only help yourself but help the business itself. Do you have a small business that is struggling with the current government regulations? We can help. We offer small business funding options to support any business that is suffering from low working capital or slow paying clients. Learn more about what types of funding your small business could benefit from.