We are cautiously enthusiastic over President Barack Obama's pledge to get government off the backs of American businesses. The president last week promised his administration would "root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb."

He'll find that to be a long list, and shortening it should keep the bureaucracy busy for quite some time. That's precisely what the Center for Progressive Reform fears. Writing in criticism of Obama's initiative, the liberal group predicts the edict to regulatory agencies "will serve largely to distract them from their important regulatory work."

The center went on to chide Obama for laying out his plan in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal — "the belly of the conservative beast" — and for adopting the corporate vocabulary in describing the regulatory framework as "job-killing."

It is exactly that. The Center for Fiscal Accountability estimates the cost of complying with government regulations consumes 18.4 percent of national income.

Economists at Washington University in St. Louis peg the dollar cost at $1.5 trillion a year.

That's a lot of money going to paperwork instead of the investment that creates jobs.

The president writes that a certain amount of regulation of business activity is needed to "protect the public against threats to our health and safety and to safeguard people and businesses from abuse." The trick, as Obama notes, is striking the right balance.

That's what makes the difference between a business climate that is vibrant and one that is stifled.

The caution in our enthusiasm for his commitment is Obama's track record of tilting the field against business.

While financial regulations needed an overhaul in the wake of the upheavals in the banking system, for example, Obama's administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress just finished a new round of financial rules that have the very real potential of driving smaller banks out of business and making it harder for businesses and individuals to get credit.

These new financial regs were pushed through on a hurry-up schedule that defies the president's new assurance that every new rule will be carefully vetted for its impact on the economy and job creation.

In his column, Obama cites the automobile industry as an example of successful regulation, noting that the industry faced a hodgepodge of fuel economy standards because of the insistence of California and a few other states on pre-empting federal authority and setting their own rules.

When the negotiations were done, automakers ended up with a uniform standard, but it was the higher one California demanded. And it's proven anything but certain, as regulators continue to raise the fuel economy target and shorten the length of time for compliance.

Now, automakers will have difficulty meeting the standards while still manufacturing the trucks, crossovers and SUVs that are the engines of their profits.

And even as the president is promising more common sense in regulating, his Environmental Protection Agency is enacting carbon emissions limits that will throttle energy production and limit growth.

But still, it is encouraging that Obama has dropped the anti-business rhetoric that marked his first two years in office and now recognizes that overregulating has an impact on job creation.

Credit the president's initiative, perhaps, to the addition of William Daley as White House chief of staff, and the acceptance by Obama that if the unemployment rate doesn't move downward in a hurry, his hopes for victory in 2012 are dim.

A president who understands that what's good for business is good for his re-election hopes bodes well for getting this recovery in gear.

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