(BigGovernment.news) It’s official: President Barack Obama is the modern era’s biggest champion of big government.

Since Obama took office in 2009, his administration has been responsible for the implementation of more than 600 regulations – a record.

Of those, more than 500 are considered “major” regulations – that is, rules that cost the U.S. economy more than $100 million per year, according to the American Action Forum, which recently completed a study of the Obama regulatory machine.

Besides shrinking Americans’ circle of liberty, government rules and regulations, quite frankly, are opportunity killers. Each one of them imposes compliance costs on American industries and businesses, costs that must be recouped so that they can remain profitable. Recoupment generally comes in two forms: Higher prices for consumers and job cuts.

According to a 2015 study, the data show that regulations kill jobs. The landmark study, by the Mercatus Center and which used a novel database tool, found, among other things, that “regulations may be particularly detrimental to economic prosperity to the extent that it deters entrepreneurship.

“If larger existing firms can overcome the costs of complying with regulations more easily than new, small firms, such smaller entrants may never start their businesses in the first place,” the study added.

Other findings included:

— For every 10 percent increase in regulations there is a 0.5 percent decrease in the birth of new firms;

— A 10 percent increase in regulation is associated with a statistically significant 0.9 percent decrease in hiring among all firms and a 0.5 percent decrease specifically among smaller companies.

And Obama has the nerve to tell the country that his economy is one of the best ever.

Even before Obama’s massive regulatory assault began, federal rules and regulations cost the economy approximately $1.5 trillion annually. After seven years of big government socialism, that amount exceeded $2 trillion in 2014. And as the Mercatus Center has found, the more regulation, the less opportunity.

The thing to keep in mind is that Obama still has several months left in office. Based on his historic regulatory push, there is no reason to believe he will spend them idly. Expect more massive regulations to come. And expect more jobs and opportunities to vanish.

What happens post-Obama will depend greatly on who succeeds him. GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, in an economic plan revealed this week, wants to cut regulations, cut corporate tax rates and increase domestic energy production – all three of which have a long, well-established track record of producing jobs and wealth.

His Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, by contrast, is a regulations lover, as she has repeatedly stated, and would implement a massive $1.3 trillion tax increase if elected. More regulations and higher taxes would just about do in what’s left of our low-growth economy.

Based on a study of Clinton’s plant, her “proposals would, on net and over a ten-year period (2017-2026), increase revenues by $1.3 trillion, increase outlays by $3.5 trillion, for a combined deficit effect of nearly $2.2 trillion over the next decade,” wrote Gordon Gray of the American Action Forum.

The facts are clear: Obama and Clinton’s arguments that the economy is not affected by government red tape is absolute bunk.

More:

• Left-Wing State Attorneys General Defying Congressional Subpoena In ‘Climate Change’ Scandal
• Conservative Groups Fire Back At Tyrannical Dems Who Want To Quash Speech Of Climate Change Realists
• The ‘Carbon Tax’ Idea Is Back Again, And This Time You Won’t Believe Who’s Pushing It

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