Gallup: Regulations are Small Business Owners' Number One Concern

A new Gallup poll of small business owners reveals that the primary problem for 22 percent of them -- as they see it -- is complying with government regulations. 

Adding those responders to the nine percent who answered poor government leadership and the five percent who picked Obamacare as their biggest problems, fully 36 percent of small business owners view the government as the cause of their biggest entrepreneurial headaches. 

Gallup also asked for (open-ended) answers to economic bad times:

When asked what they would need to see in order for their business to thrive in 2012, the nation's small-business owners are most likely to say growth in sales (15%), job creation (14%), and fewer government regulations (12%).

When it comes to cutting unemployment, only seven percent of responders listed tax credits as a primary motivation for hiring unemployed workers, whereas 64 percent listed some form of economic growth or prosperity as a reason for taking on new hires.

Politico points out the impeccable timing of the poll's release:

The survey came out as the White House tried to push back on claims that regulations are slowing down economic growth. "Two commonly repeated misconceptions are that uncertainty created by proposed regulations is holding back business investment and hiring and that the overall burden of existing regulations is so high that firms have reduced their hiring," Jan Eberly, the Treasury's assistant secretary for economic policy, penned in a blog post Monday.

Reason on small business and regulations here. See Reason.tv on the subject below.