Commentary: The Federal Government is Deciding Who Can Start a Small Business

Business Owner

Just when it seemed impossible for things to get tougher for small businesses, the federal government decided to make things worse.

Small businesses have had a tough run for the last few years. Record inflation, high interest rates, and workforce shortages have led to widespread pessimism among small businesses. The last thing they need is more government interference, but that is exactly what is happening.

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State Bar of Arizona Under Fire as Complaints and Action Against Republican Attorneys Increase

Considerable scrutiny has been placed on the State Bar of Arizona recently following its decision to pursue investigations and disciplinary actions against attorneys representing clients and causes associated with the Republican Party – particularly election attorneys. The Arizona bar is investigating and has found probable cause against Kari Lake’s attorney Bryan Blehm, and he expects they will disbar him. Former Maricopa County prosecutor April Sponsel recently underwent a disciplinary trial for charging violent Antifa rioters with gang charges, and is waiting to find out if the bar’s disciplinary judge will suspend her license for two years.

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Free-Market Think Tank Backs Bill Lightening Occupational Licensure Burden, Urges Further Reform

In the view of an Ohio conservative think tank, the Buckeye State should enact a bill the House passed, and the Senate is now considering to pare back licensure burdens for many professionals. 

Greg R. Lawson, a research fellow at the Columbus-based Buckeye Institute, testified this week before the Ohio Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee in favor of the bill. He added he believes the state should pursue further reform even after the legislation passes the Senate and receives Governor Mike DeWine’s signature. 

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Beacon Center Publishes Strategy to Cut Red Tape in Tennessee

The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee unveiled a strategy Tuesday to whittle down the mass of regulations that burden businesses in the Volunteer State. 

Beacon cites 2017 data from the National Small Business Association indicating that the total financial burden that regulations place on the average American business in its first year of operation surpasses $83,000. And while national regulations are famously onerous, even the generally free-market state government in Tennessee imposes a weighty regulatory regime. 

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Commentary: Can’t Forget the Motor City

“In the 1950s,” writes J. Eric Wise in “The French Exit: A Detroit Love Story,” Detroit was “outwardly living well, a very healthy city, technologically advanced, with economic diversity, prosperity, peace, and civil life supporting the arts and sciences.” That is no exaggeration, as this writer can testify. 

As Wise explains, Detroit prospered enormously from World War II and attracted workers from far and wide. My father, a mechanical engineer, was among them. In 1952, he moved our family from Alliance, Ohio, to Detroit, Michigan. The Big Three automakers gave him all the work he could handle.

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Republican Ohio Lawmakers Unveil New Website for Regulatory Transparency

Two Ohio Republican state lawmakers on Tuesday unveiled the new Cut Red Tape Ohio website, which they say will serve to make the state’s regulatory process more transparent. 

The site, developed in consultation with business leaders and the legislature’s Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR), came about via Senate Bill 9 which instructs state agencies to end three of every 10 state regulations over the next three years. State Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) and state Representative Jamie Callender (R-Concord), respectively chair and vice chair of JCARR, announced the site’s arrival online. 

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Arizona Will Soon Give Municipalities Limited Ways to Regulate Short-Term Rentals

Arizona – a popular vacation destination with thousands of short-term rental listings protected by legislation from most limitations – will soon allow cities to further regulate them. It will be up to cities to enact and enforce them.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed SB 1168 into law, allowing cities and towns to “govern short-term rentals via licenses or permits, notifications and liability insurance, as well as the ability to fine owners or management companies when their property occupants violate community ordinances,” his office said.

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Ohio Group Joins Fight Against California’s Livestock Regulations

An Ohio group joined the fight against a California proposition that it believes imposes illegal regulations on the pork industry across the country.

The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based policy group, filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court recently in a case filed by the National Pork Producers Council that challenges California’s Proposition 12, saying it violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which restricts states from regulating commerce outside their borders.

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Supreme Court Hands Union Loss in California Trespass Case

The Supreme Court has ruled that a California regulation allowing union organizers to trespass on private property to recruit agricultural workers violated private property rights.

In Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid released Wednesday, California agriculture businesses Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing Company challenged a state law allowing labor unions a “right to take access” to an agricultural employer’s private property three hours per day, 120 days per year to recruit new union members. The court held that this constitutes a “per se” taking. They reversed and remanded prior rulings on California’s access regulation with a 6-3 vote, the dissenting votes belonging to the court’s three left-leaning justices. 

In 2015, union organizers entered Cedar Point Nursery at 5 a.m., disrupting work during harvest season with bullhorns to convince the farm employees to join the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. Mike Fahner, the owner of the strawberry farm, did not grant the union workers permission to enter his property, nor was he given notice of their arrival. He was not legally allowed to ask the union organizers to leave his property. 

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Kemp Ends Georgia’s Public Health State of Emergency as of July 1

Georgia’s public health state of emergency will end on July 1 under an executive order signed by Gov. Brian Kemp.

Kemp first declared a public health state of emergency on March 14, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The declaration helps the state easily access supplies and other resources needed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. It lifts certain medical and commercial transportation regulations.

Tuesday’s order extends the declaration by one day and one minute.

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Former Ohio Congressman, Jim Renacci Joins Leahy to Discuss Ohio as a Battleground State for Election 2020

During a live recording on Friday’s Battleground State Report – a one-hour radio show from Star News Digital Media in the early stages of national weekend syndication roll out – host Leahy was joined on the line by Jim Renacci former (R) U.S. Representative for Ohio’s 16th district in 2011-2019.

During the show, Renacci weighed in on how he saw Ohio moving in the direction for the 2020 Presidential election predicting at this time voters would again side with Trump. However, he did mention that politics is a 30-40 day cycle where things could change. Renacci added that the policies embedded in Ohio’s politics were not the President’s politics making things difficult for citizens by holding high taxes and heavy regulation on businesses.

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Trump Deregulation Will Boost Household Income by $3,100, Report Finds

by Fred Lucas   The Trump administration deregulation efforts will raise incomes by about $3,100 per household over the next five to 10 years, and sharply reduce prices for consumers, according to a report released Friday by the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “The deregulatory efforts of the Trump administration have also removed mandates from employers, especially smaller businesses, and have removed burdens that would have eliminated many small bank lenders from the marketplace,” Casey Mulligan, the chief economist for the Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters Friday. “These deregulatory actions are raising real incomes by increasing competition, productivity, and wages.” The Council of Economic Advisers report is titled “The Economic Effects of Federal Deregulation Since January 2017: An Interim Report.” The report takes a sampling of 20 major deregulatory efforts, which it projects alone will save consumers and businesses about $220 billion annually, and increase after-inflation incomes by 1.3%. “Many of the most notable deregulatory efforts in American history, such as the deregulation of airlines and trucking that began during the Carter administration, did not have such large aggregate effects,” the Council of Economic Advisers report says. The aggressive deregulation also cuts consumer prices for prescription drugs, health…

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Just Facts Think Tank President: The True Effects of Regulations on the Economy

by James D. Agresti   In a New York Times article about President Trump scaling back regulations, reporters Binyamin Appelbaum and Jim Tankersley report “there is little historical evidence tying regulation levels to” economic growth. They support this sweeping claim only with a quote from Jared Bernstein, a former chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, who says: “The notion that deregulation unleashes growth is virtually impossible to find in the data.” In reality, there is a wealth of data indicating that regulations harm economic growth, and economists have identified numerous mechanisms by which this can occur. This includes but is not limited to: preventing workers from using the most efficient means of production. In the words of an economics book published by Johns Hopkins University Press, “The sectors that provide services related to human capital investments [like education and healthcare] may produce inefficiently because regulations preclude efficient production,” which “may result in much greater costs of achieving specific investments than would be possible with fewer regulations.” diverting people from productive work. For example, federal tax laws and regulationsrequire taxpayers to spend 6.1 billion hours per year filling out forms and performing other tax compliance tasks. This is more than the combined work time of…

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Scott Pruitt’s Parting Gift: Nixing One More Obama-Era Regulation

by Michael Bastach   A regulation to strictly limit the sale of refurbished truck engines was effectively repealed on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s final day in office. Pruitt’s last day at the agency was Friday, but that same day, EPA shifted its policy towards glider kits, which are trucks with refurbished engines. EPA would not enforce limits on glider kit sales until December 2019. Pruitt announced his resignation on Thursday amid a slew of ethics investigations. EPA officials told The New York Times “that, through the end of 2019, the EPA will not enforce an annual cap of 300 gliders per manufacturer that had been imposed in January.” The change comes as EPA prepares to finalize its repeal of regulations on glider sales. Glider manufacturer Fitzgerald petitioned Pruitt in 2017 to lift Obama era regulations. EPA was supposed to submit a finalized repeal of glider regulations earlier this year, but bureaucratic delays have kept Obama-era regulations in place. The Obama administration issued glider regulations in 2016, getting around the Clean Air Act by reclassifying gliders as “new motor vehicles.” Gliders are refurbished truck engines placed inside a new chassis. Environmentalists and major truck manufacturers, including Volvo, oppose lifting regulations on gliders.…

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Commentary: The Deadly Incompetence of the FDA

by Dan Mitchell   I routinely grouse about the heavy economic cost of red tape. I’ve also highlighted agencies (such as the EEOC) that seem especially prone to senseless regulations. And I’ve explained why private regulation actually is a very effective way of promoting health and safety. Today, let’s get specific and look at the Food and Drug Administration. This bureaucracy ostensibly is supposed to protect us by making sure drugs and medical devices are safe and effective before getting approval, which seems like it might be a reasonable role for government. But the FDA routinely does really foolish things that undermine public health. The likely reason is that the bureaucracy has a bad incentive structure. As Professor Alex Tabarrok has explained. …the FDA has an incentive to delay the introduction of new drugs because approving a bad drug (Type I error) has more severe consequences for the FDA than does failing to approve a good drug (Type II error). In the former case at least some victims are identifiable and the New York Times writes stories about them and how they died because the FDA failed. In the latter case, when the FDA fails to approve a good drug, people die but the bodies are buried in an invisible…

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