Who said: “I have never seen our government as hostile to free enterprise, especially small business, as it is today.

Bernie Marcus explains here why our job market is so dismal and why so few businesses are starting. Lame Duck President Barack Hussein Obama's over and punishing regulations.

“I have never seen our government as hostile to free enterprise, especially small business, as it is today. It is driving over-regulation, over-taxation, over-litigation, and over-spending. These ‘overs’ are killing small businesses, which create the majority of new jobs in America.”

The above paragraph appears at the end of this essay by Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot. In a disclosure, I own stock in Home Depot.

“I draw even more from lessons learned when we founded The Home Depot in 1978 rather than from the contentious GOP primary of 2016. I genuinely believe that if we to started The Home Depot today, we would fail because of the hurdles government, especially the current administration, places in front of small business owners. I never forget The Home Depot’s small business roots — we started as a small business with four stores in Atlanta, Georgia.

“I think of the banker who nearly lost his job by taking a risk and giving us a line of credit when we started. He didn’t just look at our balance sheet; he believed in our character and determination. Government regulators don’t allow this under Dodd-Frank — a law Hillary Clinton wants to make far worse.

“And going public under Sarbanes-Oxley, a Clinton favorite? Not the company we built, nor thousands of other businesses like ours the nation will never know because they died at birth, strangled by faceless bureaucrats and politicians who erroneously believe that government ‘can do it better.’

“Yet the risks we took in the 1970s have resulted in millions of jobs — not just at The Home Depot, but at our suppliers, our vendors, and even our customers’ businesses. Investors believed in us, and the government did not stop us.

“We could not do this today, for the same reason why so many Americans have dropped out of the workforce, why their wages have been stagnant, why their health care is a mess, and why our economy has stalled. It’s Obama/Clinton-style government that’s getting in the way.

“I have never seen our government as hostile to free enterprise, especially small business, as it is today. It is driving over-regulation, over-taxation, over-litigation, and over-spending. These ‘overs’ are killing small businesses, which create the majority of new jobs in America.”

[...]

Read more: http://kylewingfield.blog.myajc.com/2016/06/01/bernie-marcus-makes-the-case-for-donald-trump-over-hillary-clinton/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/06/01/why_i_stand_with_donald_trump_130727.html

It is incredibly hard to start a small business fighting redundant and unnecessary government regulation, but blaming Hillary Clinton and President Obama is bone chilling stupid, because I have been fighting arrogant local government abuse of citizens for 35 years, and for the most part the worse government abuse is from State and local government.

At our anniversary party, a man who sold his fire protection business to a large national company, found out the company had outgrown his building which the lease from the sale has expired and they want to expand adding 120 jobs. When the friend went to the City to see if he could get some variances as to parking and lighting......he found out that the County wanted $60,000 impact fees. When he went to the city he said that impact fee will kill the deal and the city will lose the 100 current employees, and an additional 120 new jobs if they are not flexible in this stupid impact fee in an industrial park..........he has been told that the city will take care of the impact fees to snag the jobs, but the point being if the business was a mom and pop......and the jobs were just 10, and the impact fee was $6,000, they would do nothing, and for that small business.....the 6K would be a bridge too far......we have lost our fricking minds to be putting impact fees on industrial parks which create jobs....insanity, and this has NOTHING to do with Clinton or President Obama, and everything to do with a Republican County caught up with abusing citizens as much as a Democratic national government.

Do you have any idea as to how many regulations/obstacles obama is dumping onto we the people? It's absurd.

http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-income-2013/fortune-100

And yet the CEO of Home Depot makes 198 times the median salary of his employees.

********

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-05-22/home-depots-ceo-cleans-upbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice

And Home Depot stiffs its shareholders.

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"Free enterprise"...

2seaoat wrote:It is incredibly hard to start a small business fighting redundant and unnecessary government regulation, but blaming Hillary Clinton and President Obama is bone chilling stupid, because I have been fighting arrogant local government abuse of citizens for 35 years, and for the most part the worse government abuse is from State and local government.

At our anniversary party, a man who sold his fire protection business to a large national company, found out the company had outgrown his building which the lease from the sale has expired and they want to expand adding 120 jobs.   When the friend went to the City to see if he could get some variances as to parking and lighting......he found out that the County wanted $60,000 impact fees.  When he went to the city he said that impact fee will kill the deal and the city will lose the 100 current employees, and an additional 120 new jobs if they are not flexible in this stupid impact fee in an industrial park..........he has been told that the city will take care of the impact fees to snag the jobs, but the point being if the business was a mom and pop......and the jobs were just 10, and the impact fee was $6,000, they would do nothing, and for that small business.....the 6K would be a bridge too far......we have lost our fricking minds to be putting impact fees on industrial parks which create jobs....insanity, and this has NOTHING to do with Clinton or President Obama, and everything to do with a Republican County caught up with abusing citizens as much as a Democratic national government.

Earth to my good friend 2seaoat!

You're talking about local, the topic is FEDERAL.

Earth to Markle......I have run small business......and not once did the Federal government present the problem. It was State and local government. In my newest project which will start a new business,, it is state and local which is killing me.......other than the ACE, I have NEVER had a project or small business impacted by the federal government.....you are living in the twilight zone or have never ran a small business. I was not taxed to death.....just the opposite, since 1982, my taxes dropped and the feds have not impeded my business, but as a small business owner, the taxes are the last thing we look at......insurance, local real estate taxes, workman comp, and getting good employees, inventory prices, and the cost of marketing and ten other factors impact small business before your imaginary paradigm that some CEO which is NOT A SMALL BUSINESS.......but a huge corporation.

This founder and his former partner are together worth more than $6 billion.

2seaoat wrote:Earth to Markle......I have run small business......and not once did the Federal government present the problem.   It was State and local government.   In my newest project which will start a new business,, it is state and local which is killing me.......other than the ACE, I have NEVER had a project or small business impacted by the federal government.....you are living in the twilight zone or have never ran a small business.   I was not taxed to death.....just the opposite, since 1982, my taxes dropped and the feds have not impeded my business, but as a small business owner, the taxes are the last thing we look at......insurance, local real estate taxes, workman comp, and getting good employees, inventory prices, and the cost of marketing and ten other factors impact small business before your imaginary paradigm that some CEO which is NOT A SMALL BUSINESS.......but a huge corporation.

Please tell the others, as you know I have been a Realtor in Tallahassee and the surrounding areas for more than 40 years and am intimately familiar with the cost and restrictions for local development.

Back to the subject at hand....

Incapable of disputing the FACTS put forth in this article, the Progressives here will attack the source. There is no disputing the figures.

Heritage Report: Cost of Obama Regulations Surpasses $100 Billion

By Cathy Burke | Monday, 23 May 2016 03:56 PM

The Obama administration has been on a regulatory expansion spree, adding 229 major regulations since 2009 at an annual cost of $108 billion, according to a report from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The report, "Red Tape Rising," released Monday, states that 43 new major rules were added in 2015, increasing regulatory costs by more than $22 billion alone.

Breaking News at Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Obama-Regulation-Spending-US-Economy/2016/05/23/id/730263/#ixzz4ArItKukE

September 2007: Former White House Lawyer and Law Professor Say Bush Abuses Presidential Signing Statements

President Bush has abused his prerogative to issue “signing statements” that state the White House’s interpretion of Congressionally passed laws (see Early 2005), according to former White House counsel John Dean and constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe.
History - Signing statements have no weight in law, but presidents have traditionally used them to state their belief that a particular legislative provision is unconstitutional, and on rare occasion (before the current president) to state their refusal to enforce that provision. Since Jimmy Carter’s administration, various Justice Department officials have said presidents can refuse to enforce a particular provision of signed, legally binding legislation. [DEAN, 2007, PP. 112-116] A group of young conservative lawyers in the Reagan administration decided that signing statements were a powerful, and stealthy, way to expand presidential power.
Dean: Bush's Use of Signing Statements 'Extraordinary' - However, Dean says that Bush has used signing statements far more extensively than any president before him. Dean notes that, while presidential signing statements themselves are not illegal or inherently wrong, “[i]t is Bush’s abuse of them that is extraordinary.” Dean writes there has been no concerted effort to find out if Bush is just saying he will not comply with the inordinate number of legislative provisions he has objected to, or if he is refusing to comply with them in practice. If the latter is the case, Dean writes, “he should be impeached immediately… because it would be an extraordinary breach of his oath” of office.
Tribe: Bush's Signing Statements 'Bizarre,' 'Reckless' - Dean cites Tribe, who said in 2006, “[W]hat is new and distressing [about Bush’s use of signing statements] is the bizarre, frighteningly self-serving, and constitutionally reckless character of those views—and the suspicion that the president either intends actually to act on them with some regularity, often in a manner that won’t be publicly visible at the time, or intends them as declarations of hegemony and contempt for the coordinate branches—declarations that he hopes will gradually come to be accepted in the constitutional culture as descriptions of the legal and political landscape properly conceived and as precedents for later action either by his own or by future administrations.” [DEAN, 2007, PP. 112-116; JOYCE GREEN, 2007] Political science professor Christopher Kelley agrees. Kelley, who studied the Bush administration’s use of signing statements, says: “What we haven’t seen until this administration is the sheer number of objections that are being raised on every bill passed through the White House. That is what is staggering. The numbers are well out of the norm from any previous administration.”
Signing Statements Supplanting Vetoes - In another disturbing trend, according to author and reporter Charlie Savage, Bush is using signing statements to supplant the traditional presidential veto. By mid-2007, Bush had vetoed just two bills. In contrast, Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, vetoed 37 bills. George H. W. Bush vetoed 44, and Ronald Reagan vetoed 78. Legal experts studying Bush’s signing statements conclude that Bush and his legal team are using signing statements to function almost as line-item vetoes, a power the president does not have. The Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that the Founding Fathers wanted the president to either accept a Congressional bill or reject it entirely, and if Congress overrode the veto, then the president had no other recourse than to follow the new law. But now, Savage writes, “the Bush-Cheney administration had figured out that if a president signed a bill and then instructed the government to consider selected provisions null (see December 30, 2005), he could accomplish much the same thing. Moreover, it was an absolute power because, unlike when there is a regular veto, Congress had no opportunity to override his legal judgments.” [SAVAGE, 2007, PP. 230-231]
Entity Tags: Laurence Tribe, John Dean, US Department of Justice, George W. Bush, Charlie Savage, James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr., Christopher Kelley
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a0907deantribesigning#a0907deantribesigning

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Please show me ten federal regulations which President Obama is responsible which you think negatively impacts small business. You are blowing smoke and mirrors and your propaganda is just the opposite of the truth. Small business is in recovery from the Bush presidency, and the regulations may impact multi national corporations, but small business.....federal regulations.....nonsense.

2seaoat wrote:Please show me ten federal regulations which President Obama is responsible which you think negatively impacts small business.  You are blowing smoke and mirrors and your propaganda is just the opposite of the truth.   Small business is in recovery from the Bush presidency, and the regulations may impact multi national corporations, but small business.....federal regulations.....nonsense.

Talk about blowing smoke....

"How Obama Is Keeping Small Businesses Down"

"In 1995, President Bill Clinton determined that small businesses were in dire need of relief from the smothering effect of hundreds of thousands of pages of federal regulations. He worked with a Republican Congress to produce the most significant legislation ever to help small businesses, the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement and Fairness Act.

By contrast, the current administration has talked about helping small businesses, but continues to enact regulatory policies that limit their ability to profit and deters new businesses from entering the market. In fact, the current plan appears to be one of speeding up regulations.

President Obama has said that “small businesses have always formed the backbone of the American economy. These entrepreneurial pioneers embody the spirit of possibility, the tireless work ethic, and the simple hope for something better that lies at the heart of the American ideal.” But the rate of growth for regulatory restrictions was approximately 38 percent larger for the Obama administration between 2009 and 2012 as it was during a similar number of years for President George W. Bush (2001 to 2004). "

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/03/24/obamas-slams-small-businesses-with-excessive-regulations

People who have lived on the government teat telling folks who have worked in the private sector and have actually contributed that we are being over regulated. Please just give me 10 simple regulations which President Obama has instituted which hurt any of my remaining two private business entities which I do the taxes. I need to be educated by teat sucking government employees about the regulations which impact my business. I can give you a list of state and local crap......and it is all republican. At one of our Republican precinct meetings, one of our more honest members stood up and said that we have controlled this county for 150 years and we are doing things worse than DC and we are republicans......he is right........but the federal government killing small business......you have to be kidding, or simply are clueless about what it takes to make a business profitable. I have failed in business, and not once was it the federal government which contributed to the same. It has been my incompetence, greed, failure to identify the market, failure to assess my expenses.......you do not worry about taxes until you can bring a new small business to profit, and 90% of all small business fails in the first five years.