Why Is Economic Freedom Being Strangled by Government Over-Regulation?

Why Is America in Decline? There are of course many reasons – but one in particular is government over-regulation. It is strangling the American Prosperity Machine – competitive, free-market, Constitutional, free-enterprise.  This is particularly true for small businesses and small, entrepreneurial start-ups.

There was a time when a housewife could supplement the family income by baking cookies and cake in her home oven and selling them at local grocery stores.  Today, that’s not so easy – as a list of food and tax regulations must be honored.  Recently, the news reported a child’s lemonade stand was shut down as illegal.  Over the Christmas holidays, an innovative young girl was prohibited from selling mistletoe on the street, while at the same time a beggar was tolerated a few feet away.

The regulation-required paperwork alone is discouraging small business start-ups and innovation, which has been a significant, job-creating force in the growth of American entrepreneurial, free enterprise. That’s no longer the case.  Big government, in cahoots with big business, welcomes regulations because it discourages competition from small, low-overhead, innovative operators and entrepreneurs. Big businesses can afford a team of lawyers, accountants and consultants to help them cut through the government red tape. The little guys can’t afford that.

If America wants to restore its entrepreneurial, job-creating days, government regulations must be minimized.  At the very least, small enterprises should be exempted from most regulations and taxation for the first five years of operation. Also, any business with sales below $10,000,000 a year should be exempt from federal, state and local taxation. This would enable a new enterprise to become financially secure before encountering government disincentives.

If a guy wants to buy a truck and enter into the transportation business, he should be able to do so without an avalanche of regulations and restrictions. If a housewife wants to make and sell her favorite recipe, she should be able to do it without government permission and interference. If a guy wants to start a machine shop, he should be able to do it unencumbered by government.

My Belgian father came to America in 1920, and went to work as a machine apprentice at the age of fifteen. By twenty five he was an expert in the metal forging business. Subsequently, he and his brother participated in the start up of three metal working enterprises, including a forging facility that employed up to four hundred skilled workers. In today’s regulation-intensive environment, he never would have been able to accomplish any of this. No new businesses, no jobs created.

Most people don’t realize the extent to which over-regulation of small and entrepreneurial enterprises is stifling America’s prosperity, employment, growth, competitiveness, innovation, excellence, etc. However, just try to open a business and you’ll find out how difficult and expensive it is to stay legal. The lawyers, of course, love it, as do the tax-accountants, but the American-Way – the American Prosperity Machine– the American people – suffer the undesirable consequences.

Why in heaven’s name doesn’t America error on the side of success, prosperity, innovation, entrepreneurship – and abandon its irrational obsession with solving every conceivable problem with a new government regulation affecting the general public. There must be a better way – and I sense it is the old way – the traditional American-Way – that once made America the greatest country in human history.

Marxist/Fabian-Socialists/big-government leftists want to control every aspect of American life.  The ObamaCare fiasco is a typical example of government ineptitude.  Look at the Post Office – a mess. Look at Amtrak – another financial disaster. Look at the ever increasing bureaucracy in Washington – trying to justify its position of ineptitude by passing more and more regulations to solve smaller and smaller problems.  It’s time to put an end of this nonsense – to return America to economic freedom – to free enterprise – to minimal regulations – to the traditional American-Way.

Image: Courtesy of: http://ap7.wikispaces.com/Frankenstein’s+Monster