Quote of the day—Bill Buckler

In their Ten Thousand Commandments 2012 report which was released in June, the CEI estimates the cost of US government regulation at $US 1.75 TRILLION. That is just under half (48 percent) of the budget of the federal government. It is almost ten times the total of all corporate taxes collected and almost double the total collected from individual income taxes. It is also one-third higher than the total of all pre-tax corporate profits. It is the hidden cost of doing business in an interventionist economy. The fact that the cost of complying with these regulations is substantially higher than the total of corporate profits is a stark illustration of the end result of economic intervention. That end result is capital consumption.

In the US, the federal government lists its regulations in what is called the Code of Federal Regulations. These rules of the economic “game” cover 169,000 pages and more than ten new ones are added every day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. In 2011, the US Congress passed a total of 81 new “laws” while government agencies issued 3,807 new regulations. As the CEI points out, if there ever was an example of government without the consent of ANYONE – this is it.

Bill Buckler
July 22, 2012
The Cost Of Government Regulation: $1.75 Trillion
[Emphasis in the original.

And please don’t ever forget there are those who believe they were “born to regulate”, “And it is a thrill; it’s a high… I love it; I absolutely love it.”

I need a new frontier.—Joe]

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One thought on “Quote of the day—Bill Buckler

  1. Then there the state and local restrictions. If you’ve never owned a business, you have no clue. None.

    The first business I started, we were in violation of local zoning law. It was brought to our attention, but never enforced. If it had been enforced, we’d have been out of business right then and there. Then there are the building codes, which in this town are not enforced unless they decide they don’t like you, in which case they’ll force you to spend enormous amounts of money. We knew a guy that the city pukes didn’t like. It cost him over 100 thousand dollars to “earthquake proof” his building, among other things. Other buildings just like it, right next to it, built in the early 1900s, are not earthquake proof, never have been and never will be (unless they decide they don’t like those owners).

    When we had to replace a window in our Clarkston, WA store, we had to wait weeks for a special order “safety glass”, which at the time was available from only one supplier in our side of the state, and it was enormously expensive, due to state and local restrictions. One fucking broken window is a government case.

    Then there is consumer credit and contract law, which harshly discriminates against the business owner while favoring the deadbeat consumer at virtually every turn.

    Then there is the double or near double rate for utilities and property tax that I’m sure most of you never heard of.

    Then there is our retarded, Marxist education system. We’ve hired accounting majors who couldn’t figure 5% sales tax and had never seen a federal or state tax form. Idaho’s sales tax report is a postcard, while Washington’s is multiple pages, with multiple tax rates depending on locale. We have customers in almost all counties, and many cities in each county, all with their own local tax rate option. You have to hire extra people just to handle the bureaucracy, and then you have to train them (because education is a joke at best) and hope they don’t screw you because you have little to no recourse if they do.

    Y’all have no. Fucking. Idea.

    And that doesn’t even touch upon environmental law. If your old building has an old oil tank buried under it (many old buildings were heated by oil at some stage) you’d have to bust out your floor, dig it out, have the surrounding dirt hauled away by government approved specialists– in short it would bankrupt you do be in compliance. If you want to sell the property, well…good luck, Chump. (and fuel oil is biodegradable)

    Then some members of my immediate family, who work for .gov agencies, tell me I’m a fool for having my own business, stumbling into some of the truth of the situation by (unknowingly) admitting that if you’re in business you have a target painted on your back (and your forehead).

    You wonder why we have a stagnant economy? Fuck you.

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