Obama Shouldn’t Embellish His Small Business Record

From Scott Shane's article in Bloomberg Businessweek:

Now consider regulation. The National Economic Council report says that the president has cut “red tape” on small business. At the end of 2011, however, the number of federal rules affecting small business stood at 822, up from 753 at the end of 2008, according to a report (PDF) by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Therefore it’s not surprising that small business owners deem regulation a bigger problem than before President Obama took office. In December 2008, the month before the president was sworn in, only 8 percent of respondents to the National Federation of Independent Business’s monthly survey of its members reported (PDF) that “government regulations and red tape” were the single most important problem they faced. In April, that fraction was up to 20 percent.