EDITORIAL

Get them off our backs

"We spend so much time, money and effort trying to cope with government regulations, we hardly have anything left for running the company," a disgusted businessman told us recently.

Government interference has always been an irritation. But today, its suffocating grasp has reach unprecedented levels. Never before have city, county, state and federal regulators so tenaciously sought to hobble business operations through a papertrap of thousands, if not millions, of rules and regulations.

The bureaucrats' sticky web includes rules ranging from the much-needed (health, safety) through the questionable, unnecessary, weird, useless and unachievable. Too many today fall into the latter part ofthat list.

Many reek of the anogance of authority, apparently designed to punish rather than produce a positive result. As tax.burdened citizens have cut funding to government agencies, the "public servants" have cynically used regulatory fines as revenue devices to maintain their bloated status. Is it a coincidence that a day's inspection results in a fine that approximates the inspector's salary, plus a little something for the agency?

DAVID CUTLER publisher

Among the negative effects created has been an attitude of us-versus-them. an adversarial condition that has had a corrosive effect upon the relationship between the governed and their representatives. Respect for laws and those who enforce them has been noticeably weakened.

Some business people are reluctant to expand beyond a certain number of employces because they know at 10, 25, 50 or 100 employees a whole new shelf of government paperwork falls upon them. The overhead costs rise dramatically, while productivity declines likewise. Is this what our society reallyneeds?

It is a disgrace that companies have to have workers who do nothing but fill out government forms and try to cope with the never-ending, always-growing avalanche of rules and regulations. The fact that regulations are so poorly written that it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand what is required doesn't help the problem.

If we all don't use industry groups to seek relief, and keep after elected officials, is there any reason to believe the mess will cure itselP