If excessive regulations kill businesses, why are there truckers? [View All]

[jmowreader]

Republican Big Lie Number 425: Excessive regulation kills businesses, makes existing businesses hesitant about hiring, and cripples the economy.

Reality Number 425: Two of the most heavily regulated industries in the world are the American surface transportation industry and the American air transportation industry. Both were "deregulated" in the 1970s, but in an unsurprising turn of events it seems only the regulations that disturb the big businesses who use those industries' services were removed; the regulations that remain are the ones that cost truckers and trucking companies money. And they're adding more regulations every day, expensive-to-implement ones. Just recently, the government mandated electronic logbooks, which is expensive.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations can be found at http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/

This is not a call to revoke the regulations on trucking. Most of them are necessary to promote the safety of the public, although there are a few that need to be changed. It is to point out that all this regulation hasn't stopped people from becoming truckers, buying trucks and starting trucking companies. (Four-dollar diesel and reduced freight volume has stopped more guys from going in the trucking industry than that bookshelf-size rulebook ever did.) And trust me, if the feds ever DID want to lift a rule, the first people who'd be screaming about its necessity would be someone wearing teabags as earrings.