It’s MUCH worse thank you think…

I don’t think most people understand how hostile the American government actually is toward entrepreneurs. Not the rhetoric — politicians love small businesses in speeches. I’m talking about what actually happens when you try to build one.
You haven’t made a single dollar yet and the government is already in your pocket. Licenses. Permits. Registrations. Depending on your state and industry, you might need multiple of each, and every one costs money and takes time. You haven’t sold anything, haven’t hired anyone, haven’t proven the idea works — but you’re already writing checks for the privilege of trying.
Then you start making money, and that’s when it gets fun. Federal income tax. State income tax in most states. Self-employment tax — the government’s way of making you pay both sides of Social Security and Medicare because you had the audacity to work for yourself instead of someone else. That’s 15.3 percent off the top before your income tax rate even kicks in. Then sales tax you’re collecting on behalf of the state. Property tax if you have a physical location. Payroll taxes the moment you hire somebody. And if you’re doing business across state lines, you’re navigating a patchwork of different tax codes, filing requirements, and deadlines — each with its own penalties if you get it wrong.
And you will get something wrong. The tax code is over 70,000 pages long. No human being understands all of it. So now you’re paying an accountant and possibly a tax attorney just to stay compliant with rules written in a way that practically guarantees you’ll need professional help to follow them. That cost doesn’t make your product better. It doesn’t serve your customers. It exists solely to navigate a system designed by people who have never built anything.
Then there’s regulation. Every industry has its own layer of compliance — health codes, safety standards, environmental requirements, zoning laws, reporting mandates. The sheer volume of bureaucratic overhead disproportionately crushes small operators because big corporations have entire legal departments to absorb it. You don’t. Which means regulation functionally acts as a moat protecting established players from competition. The government says it’s protecting the consumer. In practice, it’s protecting the incumbent.
As Thomas Sowell has talked about for decades, the unseen cost of regulation isn’t the regulation itself — it’s the businesses that never get started, the ideas that never get tested, the jobs that never get created. Someone looked at the mountain of paperwork and said it’s not worth it. You never see those businesses because they never existed. But the economy feels their absence.
I say all this as someone who runs a business. Every dollar I send to the government is a dollar I can’t reinvest in the Rippaverse. Every hour I spend on compliance is an hour I’m not making comics. That’s the real cost.