We in Congress need to do everything possible to encourage and cultivate small businesses, so that they can expand and create jobs. Far too often, however, U.S. small businesses are impeded by government paperwork and bureaucratic red tape.

The sooner we rein in the red tape factory in Washington, D.C., the sooner small businesses can get back to creating jobs and helping more Americans find an honest day's work.

Developing countries often have hypertrophied bureaucracies, requiring businesses to deal with enormous amounts of red tape.

The big corporations have a team of lawyers and accountants to help them. It's the small businesses, the mom and pop shops, that get lost in the layers of red tape.

We cannot afford the EPA's continued expansion of red tape that is slowing economic growth and threatening to entangle millions of small businesses.

The Small Business 'common app' would function much like the one that students complete to apply to multiple colleges and universities simultaneously. It would ensure that small businesses across the country can concentrate on growing and creating jobs - not wasting time, filling out mountains of repetitive paperwork.