Two weeks ago, cheers echoed from the walls of the U.S. House chamber in Washington D.C. but it wasn't in recognition of our fine American Olympic athletes competing in London.

It was to recognize a speech by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican from Pennsylvania's 3rd Congressional District, concerning the amount of over regulation and red tape strangling businesses like the coal industry in this economy. Unlike most of the professional politicians in Washington, present occupant of the White House included, Kelly has a strong business background which allows him to speak with some authority. After attending the University of Notre Dame on a football and academic scholarship, he moved back to Butler to work at the car dealership founded by his father. He took over ownership in the mid-1990s and continued to build on a successful business.In his speech, Kelly told how his hometown had come together to raise money to renovate a Little League ballpark. On the day it was to open, Kelly was called to the park because of a problem with the occupancy permit. Regulators found the mirrors in the restroom were a quarter of an inch too low.This example of over regulation brought laughter from Kelly's colleagues but it led into his main address, which showed how federal regulations are killing the economy."You want to talk about the thousands and thousands of pages that we put on the back of the job creators?" he asked. "You want to talk about creating jobs in America? When you want to see a nation that doesn't want to participate but wants to dominate in the world market, then let them rise! Take the heavy boot off the throat of America's job creators and let them breathe!"He said government red tape is costing this economy $1.7 trillion."You want to have more revenues, then let the tide rise for all boats! Let us be able to not only survive, but to thrive. I urge all my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle. This is not a left or right issue. This is an American issue," he stated.The speech literally brought down the House, spurring cheers of "USA!"When debating the issue of government over regulation, look no farther than Obamacare. It has been estimated that as many as 16,000 new IRS agents must be hired to enforce the new health care law and collect taxes.The length of Obamacare regulations have become legendary. One wordsmith estimates that the new law contains 2,163,744 words. In breaking that down, consider that epic novel War and Peace is only 560,000 words long and the King James Version of the Bible contains 830,314 words. If you add the text of the Obamacare statutes to its regulations, they are together three times as long as the Bible!The average reader reads at a rate of 250 to 300 words per minute, but when reading detailed documents such as government regulations, the rate drops to 200 words per minute. At this pace, it would take the average reader 180 hours to get through the voluminous regulations contained in Obamacare.That's seven and a half days of non-stop reading! In contrast, Abraham Lincoln's 272-word Gettysburg Address, one of the greatest speeches in history, takes about two minutes to recite.If you need a poster child for government oversight, it's Obamacare. Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, would be in tears if he ever saw the mountain of regulations and debt saddled on this nation's future by Obama's reckless policies.By Jim Zbickjzbick@tnonline.com