Government should create new business environment
According to Don Dahl, Marion County's district representative in Topeka, Kansas ranks 44th among the 50 states in private-sector growth and seventh in public-sector growth.
It seems to me, our political leaders have to get together and go back to the beginning and look at what government is doing. They have to ask themselves what it was intended to do and why it exists.
Does it exist to build up and secure its own dependents at the expense of the productive people? Is its purpose to burden individuals and businesses with regulations and high taxes in order to support social causes and pet projects?
The legislature has the power to rewrite the statutes on which regulations are based. Let them ask themselves, if there was no pre-existing law, what would be the best possible environment for business to thrive, and write new laws accordingly. The new laws would repeal the old. It would be a new beginning.
Government can change things if the people who make up the government have the will. The following is an example.
In 1984, a reform government was elected in New Zealand. It brought together the brightest minds and created a whole new way of approaching government.
For example, when the department of transportation said it needed to increase the fees for driver's licenses because the cost of relicensing wasn't paying for all the costs involved in the process, government leaders asked, "Why should we be doing this sort of thing at all? What is it about relicensing that in any way tests driver competency?"
After thinking on it for some time, department heads could not come up with a good reason for relicensing, so the whole process was abolished. Now a driver's license is good until a person is 74 years old, after which he or she must get an annual medical test to ensure they are still competent to drive.
Sounds like common sense, doesn't it. Our leaders need to adopt this approach at every level of government if they want to solve the problem of an ever-growing government bureaucracy and low economic growth.
— ROWENA PLETT
