Op-Ed: It’s Time to Give Small Businesses A Real Seat at the Rulemaking Table

This article originally appeared in Daily Caller on March 29, 2023

 

Policymakers often talk about the importance of small businesses, but they will simultaneously implement rules and regulations that make it extremely difficult for those same companies to conduct commerce.

And though economic policies, such as tax cuts, are very important to the health of small businesses, to be in support of small businesses truly and all of the benefits they bring to a community, government must be accountable for the effect that their actions will have on these entrepreneurs.

In short, it’s time to give small businesses a real say in the regulations that impact them.

The current approach to accounting for this issue is through the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA). Passed into law in 1996, SBREFA seeks to ensure that agencies consider the impact of their regulations on small businesses as part of their rulemaking process.

Components of this review include providing small business compliance guidance and responding to small business inquiries, as well as agency engagement with the Office of Advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

To its credit, this office works diligently to analyze rules. However, the available resources and tools it uses to help small businesses need to be updated to reflect the modern-day flow of regulatory mandates emanating from Washington, D.C.

Read full op-ed in Daily Caller