Recent Gallup polling shows the top concern facing small business is … complying with government regulations!  It turns out that they have reason to be concerned about this.  The Federal Registrar – the official publication for rules, executive orders, etc – has hit a new milestone under the Obama administration: 

Yesterday, the 2011 Federal Register hit the 70,000 page milestone. This is just the 14th time in the Register‘s 76-year history the unadjusted page count has gotten that high. And remember, it’s still November. It’s on pace to top 80,000 pages.

To be more precise, assuming 250 working days this year, the projected page count is currently 80,641. That would place 2011 in top-five territory for all-time unadjusted page counts. President Carter set the record in his final year with 87,012 pages.

Adjusting that count for thousands of blank pages and jumps yields 73,258 pages, a then-record that was broken five times by George W. Bush and once (so far) by Barack Obama. He set the new record adjusted page count last year with 81,405.

These rules and regulations are costing us money.  Consider the fact that federal rules and regulations cost our nation $600 billion and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US tourist industry alone!  America used to be the destination for 17% of the world's tourists in 2000, and now that's dropped to 12.4%.