A Message for Mr. Obama: How About We Try Another Approach . . . Simplification

1. The biggest difference between the private sector and the public sector is that government has no sense of the dollar value of time. There is no sense that all the proposed programs—that sound so good inside the beltway and on NBC’s Meet the Press—really make anyone who employs anybody cringe every time.
2. This seems so simple it may be silly to suggest it, but radically simplify how businesses operate in America, especially smaller business. It could be the greatest single energizer of individual business imaginable. Isn’t that historically where the most new jobs come from in numbers that mean anything—one or two jobs here, and one or two jobs there from millions of small businesses? Probably won’t be hiring any brokers or bankers, but maybe insurance agents, real estate agents, store managers, and people with technical and community college training. Does it matter? We need citizens who need stuff and have the confidence to go out and spend.
3. We have a very small business. Yet, I have three consultants for every employee: two for taxes (our corporate taxes weigh two pounds and are more than an inch thick), two for our pension plan, one for filing, and one for investment advice. The rules are rightly onerous. It’s a big responsibility but could be simpler. We have an accountant with some regulatory oversight (to make sure we file the nearly three dozen reports required by various jurisdictions every year). We file sales tax returns in several states, this could be consolidated.
4. Proposing tax credits for new employees won’t come close to meeting the obligations of hiring new people, plus such a business decision creates the added complexity of filing more government reports. If the person I hire is a deadbeat dad (I can’t ask.), the county will, under criminal penalty, require that I compute the amounts owed spouses, withhold these moneys (another report), and submit to the county authorities accompanied by the proper forms for dispersement to the spouse.
5. If the person I hire turns out to have a phony ID and can’t pass the immigration screening I’m required to do as an employer, there are criminal penalties for that. And more forms to be filed if the hire is successful.
6. Small business or big business, we all seem to be treated the same. And no government official seems to be able to forecast the consequences of their actions. We feed the growing daily needs of ever more averous bureaucracies. The states and the counties, in turn, layer on their own additional requirements. Every form required by the federal government probably triggers two or three downstream forms from other government entities.
7. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify. These steps would put immediate resources back to work in company coffers and perhaps even reduce the cost of government.

We need the business giants to place orders with their suppliers early and often. Get out there and sell something.

Where’s the Dream?

Our nation needs a dream. Whatever your political persuasion or philosophical bent, most of us across all strata of society get energized by the dreams of those who lead us. Right now there is a sensational vacuum.

One of the reasons we may be stumbling, fumbling, mumbling, and bumbling as we enter 2010 is that “Change” is not a dream, and deflecting major decision making to outside groups — the UN or Congress — is definitely not a dream.

What is our next destination as a nation? Kennedy used space; Johnson had the Great Society; Clinton had the end of big government as we knew it; Reagan had the end of the Soviet Union.

America is truly the place on the planet where personal dreams can come true, but we need more and bigger goals or aspirations to strive for and take pride in . . . or to hate and target. Dreams show us the way. Dreams help us all set timelines, deadlines, and expectations.

Big dreams help define the next phase of our destiny. The bigger the dream, the greater the impact.

We are waiting.

Have great holidays and keep asking, “Where’s the dream?”