When you're trying to start or run a small business, there's nothing worse than having your phone ring with a call from the IRS about some arcane regulation nobody ever told you about.

It’s not just frustrating—it's costly. Small businesses are supposed to be the engines of economic growth in this country, but now they're being strangled by red tape. Every dollar spent on compliance is one less dollar spent hiring employees or expanding operations.

The real story here isn't getting enough coverage: how much money and time these regulations take away from small business owners. And who benefits?

Nobody wants to talk about this because it doesn’t fit the narrative that everything's hunky-dory in D.C., but there’s a mountain of evidence showing how these rules are hurting Main Street.

Here’s what nobody is going to tell you on CNN: The actual costs of compliance for small businesses have been increasing at twice the rate of inflation. That means if you ran your business last year, you're probably spending 40% more this year just to stay legal and compliant with federal rules.

And guess who’s getting away with it? Bureaucrats in Washington D.C., lobbyists for big corporations, politicians looking good on paper but not actually doing anything useful. They revise the numbers quietly so you don’t notice, burying important details in footnotes.

The Obama-era regulations were bad enough. But now, under this new administration, things have gotten even worse. We need to start asking tough questions about who benefits from all these rules and whether we should really be okay with them.

Let me break it down for you: when small businesses suffer, everyone suffers. You can't shop at stores that don’t exist, and you certainly won't get hired by companies too busy trying to stay compliant to actually grow.

The real question is this: are we okay with our economy being held back because of unnecessary red tape? It’s time for a change.