Regulations are "heavy burden" preventing job creation.

[kentuck]

So saith Republicans.

And this was the response that Senator Pat Toomey gave to the President's address this morning.

What regulations is he talking about? Could they be more specific?

This has become a mantra for Republicans and they are never challenged or asked for specifics. This is another example of how the Democrats fall down on the job, in my opinion.

I am trying to think of what "regulations" they are talking about but I'm not able to come up with them?

Maybe someone can explain what regulations they are talking about??

[Vincardog]

1. Well to be honest there is one: the Minimum wage unless you are a server

[yarn_chick]

2. If you can't afford to pay people the minimum wage (which hasn't kept up with inflation

and doesn't have any buying power but I digress) you have no business hiring anyone.

[av8rdave]

3. You point out one of the Republican techniques that has always served them well

Frame every issue in broad terms, but try to make it absolute.

"Regulation" is bad. Really? Which ones?

All recipients of government aid are freeloaders and parasites. Really? They are never interested in statistics or anything outside of their stereotypes.

Any form of government program is "Marxist" or "Socialist.". Really? I'll bet most or all of those morons are unable to define either.

Tax breaks for the wealthy are necessary because they are the job creators. Really? Where are those jobs? Those "creators" have enjoyed historically low tax rates for a decade now.


Unfortunately, nobody seems willing to call them on this stuff. Guess it's too hard to express in a 15 second soundbite.

[Lasher]

33. You did a good job of debunking some of their talking points.

And each of your responses would fit into a 15 second soundbite. Gutless Democrats and pundits almost never challenge their endlessly repeated slogans, though.

[tex-wyo-dem]

37. Yes, they've done the same sort of framing with "taxes"...

"Taxes, all taxes, are BAD...period!"

Takes very little thought process to understand this absolutism. "Taxes mean money out of my pocket, right? So it must be bad."

To argue otherwise takes considerably more mental effort, discussion, debate and reason, something your typical repug lacks or doesn't want to be bothered with.

[izquierdista]

4. Child labor laws

Imagine how many jobs could be created if the "job creators" didn't have to pay adult wages.

[ClassWarrior]

8. I assume you say this in jest, but the grocer's lobby in Wisconsin has been...

...pushing Scotty Walker to eliminate child labor laws. Seriously.

:wow:

NGU.

[izquierdista]

13. Let me tell you what they REALLY want

Remember ol' Vicente Fox? President of Mexico who George just loved to converse at length with in Spanish? :eyes: One of his bright ideas was to let kids (ages 10-14) out of school so they could work in retail establishments as baggers. Go to any dollar store (OK, the 10.90 peso store) or supermarket in Mexico, and there would be this pre-adolescent kid there with the checker, stuffing your purchases in plastic bags and helping you out with them. Now here is the best part -- the store doesn't actually have to PAY these kids, because they are working for tips. You heard it right, the job was 100% tip income.

Soon we are all going to be hoping to get a tip from someone with money.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. All of them

I guess? :shrug:

Gotta clear the way for our "job creators" to.....ummm.....create jobs. So what if a few people get exploited, maimed, sickened, or dead in the pursuit of helping our "job creators" create record-busting profits that they can in turn invest in....themselves and their gated communities while the rest of us struggle to just survive?
:eyes: :puke:

[FarCenter]

6. Jobs are being created all the time

However, businesses are also improving their productivity in areas where they can, so lots of jobs are being eliminated as well.

Therefore, the net job creation is very small.

[tex-wyo-dem]

38. I agree that productivity is, in some cases, improved resulting...

in the elimination of some jobs. In most cases, though, it's not a matter of improving efficiency as much as just cutting costs by eliminating jobs and putting the extra workload on the workers remaining...and if it's salaried positions we are talking about, that extra work and time does not factor into extra pay for those remaining workers.

I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who have told me that they were spared in layoffs only to be left with a situation where they had to work considerably more overtime to do the job of the people who got eliminated. In most cases, the people I talked to were salaried employees who did not get paid for overtime.

[FarCenter]

40. Some of this is mid-level management resistance to change.

Upper management wants the work reprioritized and business processes streamlined to get rid of cost.

Mid-level managers want to keep on doing all the stuff they have been doing the way it has been done in an effort to preserve their own jobs and justify adding people later.

[ladjf]

7. Standard Republican misinformation. nt

[KittyWampus]

9. When it comes to small start ups, it absolutely is. As a small business I owner I KNOW this.

Large corporations with deep pockets can afford to keep up with the ever increasing amount of regulations.

Health and Fire inspections.

I could tell some stories about what the last asshole fire inspector put us through. And we've been compliant.

Until "Governement" starts making a distinction between small local business and large corporations- a lot of voters are going to side with Republicans on this issue.

Democrats need to make the distinction between Republicans making life easier for large corporations to pollute the environment etc and small local businesses making ends meet repsonsibly.

[kentuck]

10. for example?

Can you be more specific?

[KittyWampus]

11. My family had a restaurant for decades. Now, to do the same things we'd have to have>

Ansel system over the stove
Grease traps in the ground- even if we didn't put fried food on the menu or threw oil into garbage
Professional dish washing system that is HUGE. We did very well with two sinks and two dish washers

This is just for starters. I could go on with a LONG list.

[hobbit709]

12. So you think Environmental and Health rules are unnecessary?

[KittyWampus]

17. You don't think there's a difference between small local businesses and huge multinationals?

You don't think Regulations should reflect that?

Great example posted here about a week ago- Cheese vendors at Farmer's Markets can no longer cut cheese samples for customers at request. Unless they have a sink with boiling water. No attempt to make it work for small guys. Just make it impossible for them.

[hobbit709]

22. Health, safety and the environment should be a concern at EVERY level.

It doesn't matter if dishes are washed at a nonsterilized temperature at a family owned restaurant with only 4 tables or at a huge banquet hall. It only takes one case of illness.
Ask your city water and wastewater department about how much fun it is dealing with grease in the sewer lines.

[JHB]

32. For cheese samples?

[hobbit709]

39. I was responding to #11

[kentuck]

15. Are those state or federal regulations?

??

[KittyWampus]

18. State.

[FarCenter]

23. Ironically...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansul#Environmental_record

Environmentally, Ansul ranked in 2002 among the dirtiest/worst facilities in the US for cancer risk (air and water releases) and non-cancer risk score (air and water releases)<19> due to chromium and copper.

[JHB]

30. Were those due to federal regulations or state/local?

on edit, nevermind. Answered above.

[rucky]

25. Yep.

and small business is the enemy of big business. They lobby for regulations that keep the little guys from growing.

[alc]

26. well said

I've started a few companies (which failed) and been through a couple of startups that grew from <10 to >200 employees.

Now that I'm in a fortune 500 who can afford to keep up, there is A LOT of waste in doing it. The effort is huge that HR and legal put into creating training classes, then everyone in the company going through training at least once a year, then documenting it all. I spend about 3 weeks per year in training and meetings and documenting that everyone under me is trained on hiring, salary/promotions, sexual harassment, drug use, and a few other things. My company has literally 1000s of other people spending the same amount of time.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

14. I simply don't know how you expect us business owners to survive

with all of your liberal, communist, socialist regulations! How am I supposed to make a profit if I can't make childrens toys without lead or dogfood without antifreeze? If I have to pay to insure that the men who work in my coal mines are actually safe, that could endanger my "Whale" status in Vagas! You fucking pinkos don't understand the free market! If useing my products causes you to get sick and die, DON'T BUY THEM!

Assholes!

[ClassWarrior]

16. +1

NGU.

[KittyWampus]

19. Are you an actual small business owner.

[ClassWarrior]

21. First of all, you're supposed to put a question mark at the end of a question. Second...

...(it's sarcasm).

NGU.

[blindpig]

20. Ain't just Republicans sayin' that...

jusy sayin'

If the people who say these things would substitute 'profits' for 'jobs' they'd be more honest, they don't give a fuck about workers.

[alc]

24. here are some

http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/lawsprog.htm
http://www.tgassociates.com/freetipsheets/HO-fedlaborlaws.asp

Then there are state and local regulations.

Then there are industry specific regulations.

Many big companies require all of their vendors to meet their regulations to be safe. So if you're a small company wanting to get certain clients you may be out of luck. This often includes audits (finance, security, process, hiring) to they can prove their vendors are in compliance. Those are a major pain in the ass when all 10/20/50 people in the company are working out butts off to get and keep business, then we have auditors in the office for a week.

Then there are taxes and insurance requirements. State, federal, monthly, quarterly, and keep up with changes.

And these change so you need to keep up with them and keep your employees trained on many of them.

And it's not just a matter of following the regulations. You need to have it documented that you followed the regulations.

I currently know three companies with 49 employees. They each could get enough business to add more. The link above only shows 2 federal regulations. But at 50 employees, you should add an HR person, start documenting and training employees more (cuts everyone's productivity), put a lawyer on retainer for meritless EEOC and ADA complaints (at least the ones I've been involved with were found to be meritless). So you really need to go from 49 to 52/53 and possibly change the culture to some degree.

[kentuck]

27. I assume you think these regulations are unnecessary?

and serve no purpose?

[FarCenter]

28. Doing business on government contracts is worst of all

You need a specialist in government contracts. Especially DoD.

[hack89]

29. It is less the regulations as it is the enforcement mechanism

that severely impact small businesses. Some examples:

1. Multiple agencies with their own inspectors, paperwork and fees. Every year the fees go up to pay for the bureaucracy because the state cuts their budgets.

2. One size fits all regulations that defy common sense - a friend of mine runs a small business that has a small tankless water heater. He was fined because he didn't have a boiler inspection. Turns out he is held to the same standard as a factory with huge boilers. Brand new heater that meets all federal safety standards - it has been on the market for years and is found in millions of private homes with a perfect safety record. There is no requirement to inspect them in private homes. Yet the state wastes money inspecting such systems if they are in a small business.

If you want people to support such regulations, then enforcement of them has to be rational and reasonable. Or otherwise the baby will be thrown out with the bath water.

[TheKentuckian]

35. Regulations without enforcement are less than worthless.

Being "small" (I've worked for what was called a small business that was tens of millions of annual revenue) doesn't mean you really are and even if you are it doesn't mean you can dump whatever you want wherever you want, hiding behind we can't do "That MUCH damage" or put your fewer employees in harms way because there is a limited number of them.

I just don't see where in health and safety matters that being small should be seen differently than being large. Wages are the same way.
Where we can clean up is the sort of ladder pulling up regulation specifically written by larger operators that can buy legislators get put in that to them are absorbable costs of doing business that hurt the bottom line a whole lot less than vigorous competition would.
I think the biggest aid to small business is to have hard limits on the size and interconnectedness of large business but the other thing we should do is carefully look at the areas where some just absorb costs that cripple small operators with similar outcomes.

In the one size fits all example you made, I see an issue of regulation not keeping up with technology more than a scale issue. The tankless heaters shouldn't be looked at the same as boilers at all because that isn't what they are. Should your boiler style systems be exempt because people have them for home use (hot water tanks, anyone)?
Tankless should have a different inspection and cycle appropriate to the technology.

[JHB]

36. I also see a potential other issue here:

Revenue. cash-strapped state and local governments pushing to get as much revenue from fines and fees as possible so that they aren't "raising taxes".

[unblock]

31. those damn regulations that prevent polution, slave labor, unsafe product & working conditions, etc.

they also hate all employment law because any hire (for companies with more than 50 employees, i think) exposes them to a risk of discrimination lawsuit.

regulations that prevent fraud, that require nutritional and allergen risk information, all that stuff.



just think how much more profit could be made if they didn't have to worry about how expensive the government makes dead workers and customers and neighbors!

[santamargarita]

34. More lame ass excuses from fascist pigs about something they know nothing about!