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Representative David Schweikert - Vice Chairman

Lee Report Highlights Policies for Unleashing American Entrepreneurship

Lee Report Highlights Policies for Unleashing American Entrepreneurship

WASHINGTON—Today, Ranking Member Mike Lee (R-UT) released a Joint Economic Committee report highlighting policies for unleashing American entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is critical to the advancement of human progress. In the last half century, however, entrepreneurship has declined across multiple different measures, including business formation, self-employment, and productivity growth. The JEC's latest report explores how declines in entrepreneurship coincide with obstacles imposed by government in the form of regulatory accumulation, taxes, and spending. 

The report tracks the explosion of the government's size in the 1970s and the concurrent slowing of entrepreneurial activity, finding that if growth rates had continued at their pre-1974 level of almost 4 percent, the U.S. economy would have been approximately 50 percent larger in 2022. Policymakers should support American entrepreneurs with reforms that remove government barriers and improve access to capital. 

Ranking Member Lee said, "Entrepreneurs have served as a powerful force for improving Americans' lives throughout the history of our country. To unleash American entrepreneurship, we must address the heavy burdens of excessive regulation, taxation, and government spending that create obstacles to innovation."

 Read the report here.

The Joint Economic Committee is Congress's bicameral economic research center and home of the Social Capital Project, led by Ranking Member Mike Lee.

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