Henry Nothhaft writes A Labor Day Message for President Obama in the Wall Street Journal 9/2/11

excerpt:

When it comes to job creation, Washington is afflicted with a totally bipartisan cluelessness. For every Democratic Congress that passes a health-reform bill with new 1099 tax reporting requirements that impose heavy new costs on small businesses, a Republican-led Congress passes a Sarbanes-Oxley law that forces small firms to shoulder the onerous costs of new accounting rules meant to stop fraudulent behavior by big businesses. This despite the fact that small businesses pose zero risk to the economy.

Unfortunately, Mr. President, the only thing that Sarbanes-Oxley stopped was the ability of start-ups to pay the vastly increased costs of going public, thus crippling the IPO market and job creation (92% of which occurs after an IPO, according to the National Venture Capital Association). It certainly didn’t stop Wall Street banks—all of whom were compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley—from recklessly sinking the economy in 2008.

HKO comment

Oh Snap! Nothhaft nailed it. We construct complex regulatory structures to solve a problem created by large companies and then apply them to small companies. It not only stifles the job growth that small companies provide but it even proves ineffective for large companies because we are always fighting the last war. We try to fine tune complex solutions rather than apply sound principles. We are so focused on enforcing regulations on old problems that we fail to see new threats right under our nose.

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