Uncertainty is a Wet Blanket on Job Creation

1. Uncertainty over the cost of the health care law (and the thousands of pages of regulations written to implement it).

For instance, six months ago, no one was writing about the huge administrative burden created by a section hidden away within the health care law that forces businesses to issue 1099 tax forms to any company they buy more than $600 of goods or services from in a year. Just to give you some scale, for my small business, this will include more than 1,000 companies. We will need to collect over 1,000 tax identification numbers and prepare and mail over 1,000 tax forms we did not have to prepare before the health care legislation became law. And, our active 17,000 customer accounts that buy over $600 per year will be sending us 1099's that we will need to keep, I suppose, or attach to our corporate tax return.

And, to what end are we going through these new administative burdens? The tax scofflaws are not going to be sending out a blizzard of 1099 forms. Only the companies who follow the law already are going to be doing this. So, what the health care law has done is create administrative work for law abiding corporate citizens who already pay their taxes.

There are other pitfalls that have not been uncovered yet (the bill itself is over 2,000 pages long and the regulations written to enforce it are many times as long already, and growing).

This is not insignificant. And, it is going on in lots of different places in our economy. Just ask any business person.

2. Uncertainty over the regulatory environment. Michael Aronstein used the phrase "regulatory totalitarianism" when talking about what is coming out of Washington these days and it really is very accurate. The rule of law is eroding and being replaced by the rule of bureaucrats.

3. Uncertainty over tax rates. When was the last time it was November and we still did not know what the tax rates were for the following year? That is what this Congress and this President have promised the American people. How easy is it to plan business investment and hiring when you don't know what a major component of your costs will be (36% federal rate on any income you can muster up in this economy). Tax rates matter, Mr. President. The longer they are uncertain, the lower the amount of business investment.

This is one area the current Administration just does not understand. Uncertainty is preventing business investment and job creation. This is what is happening in the real world, Mr. President.

Woldy