The burdens of regulation

By Jan Teague, President/CEO

I keep thinking about what it takes to be in business and the challenge of working with government. 

I hired a new employee a few weeks ago who is just out of school.  I have to send in forms to Employment Security and DSHS.  Of course, I have to make sure that I get two forms of ID to verify that he is not an illegal.  The list is much longer of the things I need to be sure to do.  There are so many legal liabilities for having just one employee and for staying in business:  social security, labor & industries, employment security, income tax forms, quarterly reports, B & O tax payments for both the city and the state, health insurance enrollment.  These don't include internal forms to assure against future lawsuits - personnel policies, travel policies, etc. 

Are there more things that I am forgetting?  Of course there are always new obligations on the horizon for the business itself.  While I am an association, I still have to run as a small business and make sure that I am meeting all of the government's regulations and laws. 

The other day, Richard Davis, president of the Washington Research Council, wrote an article on the maze of state and local laws.  It struck me as so burdensome to know that each year government adds more and more regulations.  He wrote that last year there were 13,000 pages of new regulations written in Washington State in 2010.  The agencies had proposed 17,000. That's where you know that associations like us come in, trying to stave off as much new regulation as possible.

It's no wonder that candidates running for office are campaigning on a platform of less regulation.  Business understands this completely.  Anyone who isn't in business just sees this as some attempt at destroying the country.  Somewhere there has to be a happy middle ground. 

Maybe it is in the idea of a true freeze on all new regulations for 2 years.  That would give business a great deal of stability for planning their business growth and for hiring decisions.  Of course, it would lay off a lot of public employees whose job it is to write new laws full time - every day of the year.