“But I just noticed — I wrote down because I heard it — since about six years ago, 260 new federal regulations have passed, 53 of which affect this plant. Fifty-tree new regulations. Massively expensive and probably none of them amount to anything in terms of safety or the things that you’d have regulations for.”
Donald J. Trump
December 1, 2016
Transcript, Carriwe Plant in Indiana
Nobody is saying we can’t improve or reduce regulations. But they are not the cause of the offshoring.
The fact is that regulations are a “management” headache. Management are the ones who have to read the regulation, figure out if it applies, write and appropriate policy(s) to address the regulation, and document for the government that the policy(s) has been complied with.
A lot of regulation compliance, eventually get automated, or just become part of the management knowledge base for that particular industry. Compliance usually doesn’t take a lot of time, but management hates it and feels like it takes more time than it really does.
And that’s why Management will complain about regulations before it complains about taxes. Taxes are the corporations or owner’s money. If you’re not going to simplify the process, the rate doesn’t matter to management.
And companies that offshore are not going to say that they are offshoring to take advantage of the cheap overseas labor, but they still intend to sell back into the US market. That would be suicide. No they’ll blame taxes and regulations, They won’t tell you the real reason, because it would make people furious.