6/13/1995
Burden of federal rules, regulations, taxes putting squeeze on companies' potential for profit, growth
What is the single biggest factor in determining whether a business makes a profit, creates a job or contributes to the community? Increasingly, control over these developments rests not with the business owner or even with the employees. Too often, the ultimate arbiter of business success or failure is the federal government.

Just ask Joy and Gaylord Staveley, owners and operators of Canyoneers Inc., a whitewater rafting company in Flagstaff, Ariz. The Staveleys' business operates on land controlled by the National Park Service and the Forest Service. A few years ago, the government raised their franchise fees overnight from 2.25% to 6%, a 166% increase retroactive to the previous spring. The action forced the couple to come up with an additional $35,000 to pay the fees. Another time, the Staveleys wanted to upgrade a sleeping bag, but the Park Service refused their request to recoup some of the costs by charging $5 more per trip.

Just ask Tony Burdett who runs an independent BMW repair shop in Atlanta. Under the Clean Air Act the government is phasing out freon production by the end of, 1995. To deal with the limited supply, the federal government has forced smallbusiness owners to spend thousands of dollars on new equipment that stores, filters and reuses the freon. Burdett has no problem recycling freon, but he resents the fact that the government has mandated expensive equipment that breaks down regularly, costing him even more money. Uncle Sam also has increased taxes on freon. Five years ago, Burdett's customers paid $3 per can. Now the price is $14.95.

And just ask Jeryl M. Marler, a Utah roofing company owner. Marler is being forced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to spend hundreds of dollars per employee for what he feels is unessential safety equipment for "fall protection."

The new rule says employees must wear a harness with a lifeline that is tied to the roof any time they are at least six feet above the ground. Marler believes the rule may, in fact, create a greater danger for his workers, who now Will have to worry about tripping over each other's safety riggings. In the past employees used a commonsense rule: They'd tie themselves to steep roofs when they felt they might be in danger. To comply with this new mandate, Marler says hell have to increase greatly the average cost of installing a roof.

Small business owners like the Staveleys, Burdett and a. Marler And themselves struggling to deal with excessive regulations, paperwork and taxes that cripple their ability to turn a profit and generate security for their families, their employees and their communities. They view the government as a hurdle that is much larger and more pervasive than competition or any other problem they face on a daily basis.

That is a message the more than 2,000 U.S. smallbusiness owners will deliver to lawmakers and the federal government this week at the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business in Washington. The fact that Republicans in Congress have been talking about smaller government and less regulation and President Clinton is paying increased attention  is reason for some hope. Policymakers must keep in mind that smallbusiness owners have been the engine driving this nation's economy from its earliest days. Were it not for America's free enterprise system, the 119 million Americans employed in the private sector would be without jobs.

According to the Small Business Administration, Arms with four or fewer employees added 2.6 million new jobs lag year and accounted for virtually all the job growth between 1989 and 1991. And the Commerce Department reported that firms with fewer than 10 employees led the renewed hiring by adding 368,000 jobs at more than 100,000 new locations in 1992.

Still, today Main Street business owners And themselves beset by an allintrusive government Each Year, for example, the avalanche of federal regulations robs employers of 1 billion hours of productive time wasted filling out government paperwork and more than $500 billion footing the bill for compliance. Governments seeming ignorance of free market economics and the legislative and regulatory burdens that flow from that ignorance are the greatest threat facing smallbusiness owners today.

That's why Joy and Gaylord Staveley, Tony Burdett, Jeryl Marler and countless other entrepreneurs want government to get off their backs and out of their Pockets so they can create more jobs and more opportunities for more Americans.

Congress and the president should pay close attention.

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