Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

A “study” called Cost of State Regulations on California Small Business Study makes some wild, wild claims!  From the summary,

The study finds that the total cost of [business]regulation to the State of California is $492.994 billion which is almost five times the State’s general fund budget, and almost a third of the State’s gross product. The cost of regulation results in an employment loss of 3.8 million jobs which is a tenth of the State’s population.

Scary. Wild. Mostly, though, just unbelievable. I wonder who paid for the study?

KQED’s Capital Notes blog tracked down some of the sources of the wild, wild claims.

The authors previously released a study wildly, wildly claiming that California’s AB32 climate change legislation will cost California’s small businesses $182 billion a year and cost 1.1 million jobs.  I wonder who paid for that study?

For this “regulations” report they relied data from on a Forbes Magazine report listing California as a bad state in which to do business.  The Forbes report relies on data from the Pacific Research Institute.

This reminded me that the Pacific Research Institute released a 2007 “study” making the wild, wild claim that allowing people to sue companies that harm them costs $865 billion per year. I wonder who paid for this study?

David Dayen writes about this at Calitics,

Basically, regulations take your wives, enslave your children, throw your ice cream on the ground, and write “loser” on your chest in sun tan lotion when you fall asleep at the beach.  It’s amazing how in line this study is with standard conservative tropes about onerous regulations and big government.  I wonder why that is?

I think I’ll do a “study” that makes a claim that conservative “studies” cost us more than $12 trillion a year.  The trouble is, who would pay me to write it?

Click through to Speak Out California