Former Senator Blanche Lincoln, currently heading an anti-regulatory campaign called “Small Businesses for Sensible Regulation,” appeared on CNBC on Friday to make her case. Lincoln’s been busy trying to use different iterations of a debunked SBA report claiming astronomical costs for regulations. This time she skipped that piece, but offered this take (at 3:15):
This is the single most important issue to small businesses. It’s the biggest threat. The compliance with government regulations that don’t make sense, that cost ‘em money, and keep ‘em from creating jobs is the biggest problem they’ve got.
But even the staunchly right-wing, anti-regulatory National Federation of Independent Businesses, which proudly sponsors the campaign Lincoln heads, finds otherwise in their own surveys of their members (business owners that represent a share – but not exactly the full spectrum – of the small business sector). NFIB’s latest survey has “poor sales” topping the list of its members’ concerns, at 26 percent, with “govt regs & red tape” below it at 19 percent (page 20).
Other polling has found lower numbers than 19 percent. Small Business Majority commissioned Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research to poll small business owners this summer, and found:
Economic uncertainty and rising costs are hurting small business more than taxes and regulation: Despite rhetoric that regulation and taxes are the primary obstacles for small businesses, only 13% of owners believe regulation is the biggest problem, and only 23% report that taxes are a problem. In contrast, nearly half (46%) believe their small business is hurt by economic uncertainty and 43% suffer from rising costs of doing business.
(Note: the poll asked respondents to name “one or two” top problems facing their business, thus the combined totals going over 100%. See page 5 of the poll results for the full list of concerns identified by small business owners; regulations placed sixth in the list).
McClatchy canvassed small business owners in August, and found:
None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath.
It’s hard to know whether Blanche Lincoln simply doesn’t believe NFIB’s members when they say poor sales are their biggest worry, or whether she just thinks she knows better. But the simple truth is that Lincoln and the NFIB are not actually focusing on the top concern of most small businesses.
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Ben Somberg | November 22, 2011
Former Senator Blanche Lincoln, currently heading an anti-regulatory campaign called “Small Businesses for Sensible Regulation,” appeared on CNBC on Friday to make her case. Lincoln’s been busy trying to use different iterations of a debunked SBA report claiming astronomical costs for regulations. This time she skipped that piece, but offered this take (at 3:15): This […]
Amy Sinden | November 17, 2011
Remember that kid on the playground who always insisted on changing the rules of the game and then still threw a tantrum when he lost? That’s just the kind of spoiled-brat behavior we’re seeing from the coal industry and its elected agents on Capitol Hill this week. Coal and other polluting industries have spent decades complaining about […]
Robert Verchick | November 15, 2011
Mr. Go is Gone Today’s question: When are flood waters not “flood waters”? We New Orleanians have become fluent in all things subaqueous; last week three Texans sitting on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals took their turn. Yes, we’re talking about Katrina. Or, more specifically, its flood waters, which […]
Sandra Zellmer | November 14, 2011
The Nebraska Legislature is in a special session currently to consider five bills concerning the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The situation was shaken up by Thursday’s announcement from the Obama Administration that it was pushing back its decision on federal approval of the pipeline. This news may take away some urgency for the Nebraska Legislature, […]
Frank Ackerman | November 9, 2011
Cross-posted from Real Climate Economics. Economic analysis has become increasingly central to the climate policy debate, but the models and assumptions of climate economics often lag far behind the latest developments in this fast-moving field. That’s why Elizabeth Stanton and I have written Climate Economics: The State of the Art, an in-depth review of new […]
Holly Doremus | November 8, 2011
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. You wouldn’t think courts would still be deciding, late in 2011, whether actions taken by the Clinton Administration were lawful. But they are. Late last month, the Tenth Circuit upheld the Roadless Rule for national forests issued at the very end of the Clinton presidency. The Roadless Rule, which largely prohibited […]
Holly Doremus | November 4, 2011
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Yesterday, Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment hosted a public presentation by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. She delivered brief prepared remarks, then took a lot of questions. She didn’t announce any new policy initiatives, but she did make it clear that she (and the President) are not going […]
William Funk | November 4, 2011
On November 9th the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in National Meat Association v. Harris, wading once again into the mire of federal preemption. The National Meat case involves a California statute that prohibits the slaughter of non-ambulatory animals for human consumption and requires that non-ambulatory animals be immediately and humanely euthanized. A federal law, the […]
Ben Somberg | November 1, 2011
If I didn’t know better, I’d think Blanche Lincoln was trying to fool us. The former Senator currently heads the National Federation of Independent Business’s anti-regulatory campaign, and is in DC today to push for a freeze on new regulations. For her accompanying op-ed in Politico, how would she make the case that regulations are […]