SBA reg review comment

December 21, 2007 Mr. Keith Holman United States Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy RE: Small Business Regulatory Review and Reform Initiative Dear Mr. Holman: The Regulatory Studies Program (RSP) of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University is dedicated to advancing knowledge of the impact of regulation on society. As part of its mission, RSP conducts careful and independent analyses employing contemporary economic scholarship to assess proposed and existing regulations from the perspective of the public interest. Thus, the following suggestions for regulatory review do not represent the views of any particular affected party or special interest group, but are designed to bring research on the effects of the regulations on overall consumer 1welfare to the attention of SBA and the relevant agencies. The following suggestions are in response to SBA’s Regulatory Review and Reform Initiative, which is designed to identify and address existing federal regulations that 2should be revised because they are ineffective, duplicative, or out of date. In particular, the initiative is targeted toward helping small businesses address the cumulative federal 3regulatory burden. While our research frequently attempts to estimate the benefits and costs of proposed regulations, Mercatus scholars also conduct research on the costs of existing regulations across sets of issues and within various industries. While our scholarship ...