Has government regulation slowed the recovery?

Has over-regulation held back the nation’s economic recovery? It’s a claim that politicians -- particularly pro-business conservatives -- periodically make, most recently Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., during a March 10, 2013, appearance on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Johnson’s comments on This Week were partly obscured in the cross-talk with other panelists, so we decided not to put his statement on the Truth-O-Meter. (His spokesperson said he was talking about regulations as well as taxes and penalties, but that isn’t verfiable from the footage.) Still, we wondered whether his claim that regulation played a role was well-supported, so we checked with a range of economists.