Editorial: Shrink Government To Give Business Big Boost

President Obama stood before the cameras recently and announced “barefacedly” that he welcomed from anyone ideas on how to improve our economy. Earlier he said publicly that government is the only mechanism by which we can solve our economic woes. More recently he said it is the productivity of private business and taxpayers that will bring about recovery and that government should be an enabler and get out of the way.

Last week during the fray over the economic stimulus package, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said during a public broadcast that the legislation is merely a plan to grow government and make people more dependent on government. The bill, he said, is filled with pork. Earlier, Obama said he would not sign a bill filled with pork. So, do we buy his comment about being open to new ideas? Probably not. We must be careful who defines pork. We think pork is always something the other guy wants. All of our own proposals are legitimate. What they call pork is not always bad.

On the long chance that Obama meant what he said about ideas, we have one for him. Shrink, or at least don’t expand, government’s regulatory role. As it is, rather than being an enabler, government in many ways is destructive of business. For the sake of discussion we’ll stick to waterways subjects, realizing that many of the debilitating effects of government oversight and regulation impact nearly everyone, business and consumer alike. One problem area is regulations.

For years it was common knowledge that the barge and towing industry was probably the only private business regulated by a military agency—the U.S. Coast Guard. Now there are more overseers, many unqualified. Realistically, the Coast Guard would seem to be a good choice. The problem is that the Coast Guard, in practice, spends more time being a disabler rather than an enabler. It is the nature of the business. The Coast Guard polices the waterways, specifically looking for problems. Too frequently it creates great turmoil in the industry by abusive enforcement of the regulations (drug regs, as one example) that it has written—sloppily we might add.

When it comes to regulations, the folks on the waterways often end up in shoal water. A great deal of company time and money is spent trying to understand proposed rules, trying to challenge them, and trying not to break the company budget. These activities sometimes go on for years, all the while nibbling away at the company’s productivity. It is a frustrating habit—frustrating to the brown-water industry at least—that the Coast Guard has a habit of bringing the barge and towing industry in under umbrella regulations that are designed for blue-water use. Then industry and associations must launch campaigns to show the Coast Guard where it has gone wrong and why the regs should not apply or need to be rewritten.

The campaigns become necessary when the Coast Guard publishes proposals and sets up guidelines for public comment. Someone on the business side has to research and author the responses, and the Coast Guard must have manpower to consider them. That costs a lot of money. One solution would be to write regulations that are shorter and easier to understand. Coast Guard authors should also understand the impact of what they write. As it is, companies must spend small fortunes to comply with regulations that are too complicated and require an army to decipher.

So, one way Obama can improve the economy is to eliminate government red tape that is unnecessarily destructive to business and wastes taxpayers’ money. This would help shrink government. “But we’re trying to save jobs!” you might say. Aha! Our suggestion is to shrink government, not expand it. Reducing paperwork and the industry response it mandates would enhance business and nurture growth. Isn’t that what Obama says he wants?

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