Almost as if in rebuttal to a blog post by Treasury's new chief economist, Gallup today released a survey it headlines, "Gov't Regulations at Top of Small-Business Owners' Problem List." The release by Dennis Jacobe, Gallup's chief economist, begins:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Small-business owners in the United States are most likely to say complying with government regulations (22%) is the most important problem facing them today, followed by consumer confidence in the economy (15%) and lack of consumer demand (12%).

This morning Jan Eberly, the U.S. Treasury's new assistant secretary for domestic economic policy, published a blog post at Treasury Notes, "Is Regulatory Uncertainty a Major Impediment to Job Growth?" She argued, "[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."

We cited several contradictory views from the business community in the post, "Uncertainty? Uncertainty!," and find the Gallup survey of small business dispositive. These business owners know their own minds, don't they?

Acknowledged: Small businesses tend to be more susceptible to the harm caused by regulatory uncertainty than larger companies.