A couple of weeks back on these pages we wrote of our outrage over the following jaw-dropping statement made by Harry Reid, the Leader of the Democrats, on the floor of the U.S. Senate:
"… my Republican friends have yet to produce a single shred of evidence that the regulations they hate so much do the broad economic harms they claim. That's because there aren't any."
Reid is using his power as the Majority Leader of the Senate to deny nearly two dozen regulation relief bills already passed by the House to come to the floor of the Senate for a vote at a time when 26 million Americans are unemployed, under employed, or have given up even trying to find a job.
George Will, the nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, put an exclamation point on the issue of excessive government regulation with a column about the plight of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. Founded in 1941 by a 24 year old truck driver named Carl Karcher with $326 and a hot dog cart, CKE now operates 3200 restaurants employing 70,000 people. Karcher’s story is yet another example of the American Dream becoming reality.
Karcher passed away in 2008, but his legacy lives on with CEO Andy Puzder now at the helm. Puzder says that the company is surviving these difficult times, but “it would thrive, but for government’s comprehensive campaign again job creation,” as George Will wrote.
This is a real life tragic story of how state and federal government regulation is killing jobs and the economy they all say they are pledged to “stimulate.” As you read Will’s entire column (link here) think, too, about how many other Carl Karcher’s American Dreams will never become a reality because the convoluted morass of government thou-shalt-not regulations that send a loud-and-clear message to today’s entrepreneurs to “don’t even think about it.”