Government regs not source of job loss

Being a fair and open-minded liberal, I wanted to investigate the conservative Republican claims that government regulations have harmed job growth, so I investigated this phenomenon by surfing the government websites I visit to gather economic data for my investment activities.

At the labor department’s site, I found a quarterly report summarizing the results of the government asking U.S. businesses the cause of mass layoffs. The bureau of labor statistics has tracked layoffs of 50 or more people by business site since the 1980s. Their survey tracked the cause of layoffs in the second quarter of 2010. Businesses reported that of the 381,622 workers separated from their jobs; 94,789 occurred because of reduced demand; 24,852 occurred due to organizational changes; 27,539 were due to bankruptcy; 171,131 were due to seasonal issues; no data given for 62,112, but only 1,199 layoffs were due to government regulations. Obviously, conservative Republicans need to review facts before they spout ideology, because businesses as a whole are not supporting their political position.

In my 30 years of working at large and small companies, only once did I feel an onerous government regulation had forced great expense on my company. It was required to eliminate the use of chlorofluorocarbons in the production process. CFCs, you’ll recall, caused the earth’s protective ozone layer to thin. It seemed to me better to incur the expense of substituting another less harmful chemical for CFC than to have the sun’s UV rays burn melanoma into the skin of most humans.

Had we not eliminated the financial regulations of the FDR administration, we also would have avoided the recent financial meltdown and the greatest recession since the 1930s. Conservative Republicans should take heed of these facts before they force changes to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and speak so blithely about government regulations.

Tom Teune

Wheaton