The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson wrote those words a long time ago. In the intervening 200+ years, our American government (at all levels) has morphed into something quite different from that espoused by Mr. Jefferson. It has become the dispenser of regulations that selectively aid some groups while selectively restraining others. One of the groups that continually is restrained by burdensome regulation is entrepreneurs and small business owners. Here’s a good example from Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic:
In a small municipality on the shores of Lake Michigan, a town council passed a law earlier this summer that is especially objectionable in tough economic times. “It is in the interest of public safety and welfare to require certain individuals to obtain a license before conducting solicitations or making sales transactions throughout the town,” the Burns Harbor, Indiana, ordinance states. Put simply, if you aren’t a resident, you’ll need an expensive permit to make or sell anything, whether on the street, door-to-door, or in a brick-and-mortar business inside town.
What’s required for a permit?
One hundred dollars, getting fingerprinted by police, and a criminal background check. “If the applicant has been convicted of any misdemeanor or felony, the permit application may be rejected,” the law states. And if you’re granted a 30 day permit? Once it expires, you’re ineligible to apply again for six whole months.
The town council claims this is intended to protect the citizens from crime, though the city has a bigger police presence and small crime rate than almost every other region in Indiana. It really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then governments don’t ordinarily let common sense stand in the way of passing some new laws. After all, it’s “for the children,” right? Under the aegis of “protecting” people, governments pile on suffocating blankets of regulation, often creating conflicts with laws issued at other levels. Friedersdorf gives some more examples of regulation run amok; it seems federal, state and local governments just can’t help themselves:
The normal mindset among U.S. officials is that prior permission should be required to sell legal goods to a willing buyer.Kids selling lemonade on the street are shut down. A Missouri man has been fined $90,000 for selling rabbits (he made about $200). In Illinois, an artisan ice cream maker is being shut down for lack of a dairy permit. Manuel Winn was arrested, handcuffed, and booked for selling magazines door-to-door without a permit. A Maryland mother of three was arrested for selling $2 phone cards without a license. Lots of municipalities are going after food trucks. A group of Louisiana monks had to go to court to win the right to sell simple wooden caskets to consumers.
If you read enough of these stories, you’ll see the targeted entrepreneurs say the same thing again and again: I just had a good idea and started a business. It never occurred to me that I needed permission. And, of course, other would be entrepreneurs don’t ever get started because they’re too intimidated to assess and grapple with the bureaucratic hurdles. Or else the regulations are written in a way that excludes from commerce folks who are operating at a very small scale.
Not all regulation is bad, of course. Funeral home operators should be licensed and subject to guidelines; home builders should be licensed and required to adhere to codes. It’s sad, though (not to mention a drag on the economic prospects of aspiring small business owners), to subject every activity to some kind of license. I agree with Friedersdorf that it’s time to deregulate.
