Entrepreneurs are a special breed of people. They see things that others can’t and are known to be dogged in the pursuit of an idea once they’ve created it in their minds. From such visionaries have emerged many of today’s greatest inventions and most successful business ventures.
Take, for example, a couple of brothers who started a little print shop. Like many small-business owners, they constantly tinkered with the enterprise, offering different products and publications. Then one day, their imaginations were captivated by a new technological fad in which they saw a profitable business, so they sold their print shop and launched a new small business.
Historians believe that Wilbur and Orville Wright’s decision to open a bicycle rental and repair shop was a crucial step in their inventive process. Their hands-on work with the two-wheeled fad empowered them with insights into balance, propulsion, wind resistance and the construction of lightweight materials, all key points that helped them perfect the world’s first powered flying machine.
Were the Wrights alive today, they would no doubt be proud of their creation of one of the greatest inventions known to man. But they would also be dismayed, possibly horrified, to discover the huge bureaucratic and regulatory structure that yokes aviation.
Likewise, they would gasp at the requirements that governments at all levels have demanded of bicycle manufacturers and print shops and be baffled at additional layers of regulation and red tape erected around all businesses.
Imagine Wilbur and Orville striking out on their adventure today. They would never get off the ground – having to comply with everything from environmental-impact regulations to occupational and safety rules, not to mention government testing laboratories and noise-abatement policies.
That may seem like an exaggeration, but it is no stretch of the imagination to realize that today the spirits of inventors and entrepreneurs all over America are being stifled by excessive regulation.
One bright spot on the horizon is an effort undertaken by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, whose specific role is to reduce this burden. The office, working with federal agencies implementing the Regulatory Flexibility Act, helped U.S. small firms in 2003 save more than $6 billion that would have gone to meeting various bureaucracies’ checklists. Now, Advocacy is turning its attention to the states by offering legislation that mirrors the federal flexibility measure.
Many states have some form of regulatory-flexibility laws, but they lack five crucial components necessary to help small firms: a true small-business definition, requirements that state agencies perform economic-impact analysis before regulating and consider less-burdensome alternatives that meet their regulatory goals, effective judicial review, and a provision that forces state governments to periodically review all regulations.
Not only will states’ passage of such measures boost the creation and productivity of small firms, but it could give wing to the imaginations of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and inventors who may just be tinkering with a great idea that will uplift mankind.
–Jack Faris is president of NFIB (the National Federation of Independent Business), the nation’s largest small-business advocacy group. A non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 1943, NFIB represents the consensus views of its 600,000 members in Washington, D.C., and all 50 state capitals. More information is available on-line at www.NFIB.com.
