Where the hell is our recovery?  How come so few new jobs? Why is our middle class shrinking? Complex questions I know. Many economists and political guys thrash about for answers. They rummage through data.

The answer to all these is as fat as a pizza. Yet these guys don’t see it. Because they look through the wrong lenses. And they’ve got their noses stuck in the mozzarella.

Through the right lenses, this problem is as clear as Perrier. Big business is romping in the sack with government. Both enjoy the romp. But the guys getting screwed are small-business people. And indirectly, you.

You may have read similar stuff in this column before. I repeat it because this is the most essential problem our economy and people face today. We peer through the wrong lenses. Doing so, we misjudge capitalism. And we fail to see how easily we could revive the economy, job numbers, and the middle class.

A few points: Small business creates our new jobs. Small business thrives on freedom. Regulations drown freedom. A simple truth. Regulations drown freedom.

For many years, Washington, D.C. and the states have poured forth waves of new regulations on business. In the last six years, a tsunami. Last year, Washington swamped us with 26,000 pages of them.

These regulations overwhelm our entrepreneurs. And snuff out the dreams of would-be entrepreneurs. So much so that we see fewer new ventures every year. We see small businesses expand all too slowly.

Big business squawks about the regulations, yes. But too often it colludes with big government in them. Big business (and big unions) buy lawmakers. No secret. Their lobbyists virtually write many of these regulations. Or at least edit them. To limit the impact on big business. To tip the scales to help their particular industry or company.

Meanwhile, small businesses get squeezed. Or directly damaged. Or ignored. 

Washington, D.C. and the states have unleashed this tsunami of regulations. Big businesses are coping with them. They have the money to hire the people to help them cope. Either in advance, or after the tsunami hits.

Small businesses do not. For them the regulations reduce freedom. They suck the oxygen from the entrepreneurial environment.

Where the hell is our recovery? It is mired in the tsunami of new regulations and taxes. It is stillborn in entrepreneurs’ dreams snuffed out by them.

How come so few jobs? Small business creates our net new jobs. We have sucked essential freedom from the air that small business breaths.

Why is our middle class shrinking? We have damaged the new jobs machine that used to build and sustain much of our middle class.

And we have forced a huge financial burden on our middle class. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) estimates how much our economy shells out to comply with our regulations. The bill is nearly $2 trillion annually.

You are certainly a part of our economy. You share in this cost in a thousand ways. In higher prices. In higher taxes. The CEI reckons the costs are about $15,000 per family per year. It calls this a hidden tax.

Government has grown like wild fire the last several years. With Obamacare. With a zillion new regulations and restrictions on the financial industry. With blizzards of new regulations from many government agencies.

I repeat: big business is in bed with big government. It protects itself in all of this. Small business is getting screwed. With a pillow held down upon its face to drown out its voice.

From Tom…as in Morgan.

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home near Oneonta, in addition to his radio shows and TV show. For more information about him, visit his website at www.tomasinmorgan.com

Recently, the Tax Foundation released its state-by-state rankings of business tax climates, and New York’s placement improved by two slots to 48th place. This improvement is good news, but it highlights that there is still much work to be done. New York is not quite ready for a victory lap.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Our state’s job creators — from manufacturers, to family farmers, to mom-and-pop shops — are surviving in spite of, not because of New York’s overzealous tax code and regulations. To shift from surviving to thriving, the state must simplify its tax code and provide tax relief to all New Yorkers and job creators.

In recent years, we’ve made progress providing more tax relief to New Yorkers. In the last few years, we’ve changed the tax code to give middle-class families the lowest tax rate in over 60 years. Legislators agreed to pass a 2 percent property-tax cap, and even the governor was given approval for his property-tax freeze scheme. This year, we passed measures that simplify and lower taxes to help retain and grow jobs in our state.

I am proud of these efforts, but we can and must do more.

A few things must happen. New York state must continue to show restraint in its spending and it must not be afraid to go deep and get at the root of problems. For example, there may be a perceived consensus in Albany that property taxes have been a problem, but it hasn’t stopped the rate of property taxes from growing so fast in recent decades that homeowners, farmers, and job creators could hardly keep up.

Legislators agreed to pass a 2 percent tax cap, and recently the governor got approval on his tax-freeze scheme, but he and the legislature have shied away from addressing the real problem behind high property taxes — unfunded mandates. In short, unfunded mandates are the programs and policies that Albany passes, but expects local governments to fund. It’s a community-crippling practice.

New York needs jobs and economic growth, and for years the state has thrown incentives and tax breaks to companies, rather than addressing the underlying problem. Job-killing taxes like the corporate franchise tax were too high and the code is quite complicated. This was making our state unfriendly to businesses and the jobs we needed.

It is my hope that the state becomes more honest about the problems facing New Yorkers. Idealizing the state of our state isn’t helpful to any of us. It’s our job to address and root out the problems facing our citizens and our economy.

Seeing New York as it really is can help us return it to its status as the Empire State. Our families and businesses deserve no less.

Marc W. Butler (R,C,I–Newport) is a New York State Assemblyman for the 118th District, which encompasses parts of Oneida, Herkimer, and St. Lawrence counties, as well as all of Hamilton and Fulton counties. Contact him at butlerm@assembly.state.ny.us