Regulatory reform: The national trend is encouraging

Americans for Tax Reform estimates the average U.S. worker labored almost 28 days in 2011 to cover that year’s costs of state and local regulations.

A 2009 California study released by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger showed state rules reduced employment by 3.8 million jobs, with the effects almost entirely borne by small businesses.

Something had to give. Something is.

“Led by Republican administrations such as those in Michigan and Florida, states are relaxing restrictions or considering regulatory relief on things from motorcycle helmets, firearms and tanning beds to bunny dyes and the size of a barber’s trash can,” Bloomberg News reports.

“There is a national focus on reducing regulation,” Mattie Duppler, who writes Americans for Tax Reform’s “Nanny State Update” online column, told Bloomberg.

For instance, Michigan this year replaced a 1931 law that limited retailers to selling sparklers and non-exploding fireworks. Also, for the first time in more than three decades, Michigan residents 21 or older can again legally ride a motorcycle without a helmet.

Of the 19,200 state rules on the books in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott wants to cull more than 1,000, Bloomberg reports. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration has cut more than 350 mandates and is studying at least 18,800 more.

Among the more intrusive rules identified in Michigan were those that required child care providers to smile and specified the size of barbers’ wastebaskets.

In California, Gov. Jerry Brown said last week he wants to eliminate 718 required state reports, including an annual survey of Australia’s kangaroo harvest.

Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Washington state are all considering dumping their motorcycle helmet laws.

“What you’re seeing is this push back on all these petty and arbitrary restrictions on everyday life,” says Nick Gillespie of the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation. “You don’t get to run every detail of my life if you can’t balance the budget. Suddenly things like regulating the size of barbers’ wastebaskets in Michigan don’t make sense.”

Here in Nevada, Gov. Brian Sandoval has vowed to repeal counterproductive regulations, and that effort is to be encouraged. But there’s plenty of work to do.

In Clark County, for instance, the number of jobs that require employees to submit to fingerprints and mug shots to obtain a “work card” remains excessive, to say the least.

And many state employment licensing requirements – consider the hundreds of hours of instruction required by the Nevada State Board of Cosmetology before a “licensee” can teach students how to apply makeup – are little more than thinly disguised protection rackets.

The trend across the country is encouraging. Nevada and its local governments should aggressively jump on board.