Senator Johnson's Misguided War on Regulations

Week after week, Senator Johnson in his newsletters lambastes the supposed effect of regulations on jobs.  He has even introduced a bill, S1438, Regulation Moratorium and Jobs Preservation Act of 2011, which would "Prohibits any federal agency from taking any significant regulatory action until the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports a monthly unemployment rate equal to or less than 7.7%. "

Senator Johnson apparently is firm in his belief that regulations are, to use a favorite Republican phrase, "job-killing."  The truth?  Not so much.

First up, the Washington Post fact-checked a recent Republican presidential debate in which this issue was brought up.  Their conclusion?

THE FACTS: Labor Department data show that only a tiny percentage of companies that experience large layoffs cite government regulation as the reason. Since Barack Obama took office, just two-tenths of 1 percent of layoffs have been due to government regulation, the data show.

Businesses frequently complain about regulation, but there is little evidence that it is any worse now than in the past or that it is costing significant numbers of jobs. Most economists believe there is a simpler explanation: Companies aren’t hiring because there isn’t enough consumer demand.

Mother Jones did a similar investigation into this, finding that the effects of regulation on jobs are likely not great, and ended with:

"The issue in regulation always should be whether it delivers benefits that justify the cost," said Noll. "The effect of regulation on jobs has nothing to do with the mess we're in. The current rhetoric about regulation killing jobs is nothing more than not letting a good crisis go to waste."

Senator Johnson, in discussing his bill, stated:

Under the Obama administration, each year the government implements an average of 84 "economically-significant" new regulations, ones that each cost the economy $100 million or more annually.

There are more than 4,000 new regulations now being written, including hundreds of economically-significant ones, but any one of them is significant if it's the one that overturns your business model. If you were a worried entrepreneur, would you be eager to hire amid such uncertainty?

But what he leaves unsaid is that President Bush had a higher pace of economically significant regulatory activities. 

Let's see:  President Obama isn't doing as many regulations as his predecessor did, and regulations rarely are "job-killing" in the first place.  Plus they often deliver public benefits!  That isn't to say that there aren't regulations that are outdated or ill-thought, something the Obama administration is already tackling. 

Update:  An inappropriate remark was removed.