Where are the jobs?

So I came across an article yesterday in the Investor's Business Daily website that discussed an op-ed released by Obama's new Jobs and Competitiveness Council. Obama promises he really is concerned about the massive unemployment in the country, and to prove it, he's put together this council dedicated to finding every potential for job creation. He's vowed to "leave no stone unturned" in his quest to putting America back to work.

Unfortunately, the path he seems to be taking on this is mimicking his approach to everything: top-down, centralized power, and over-reliance on government power.

On the council are some of the biggest heavy hitters from the largest American companies: CEOs from GE, American Express, Time Warner, Kodak, Facebook, and more. Noticeably under-represented are members from the small business community. Granted it might be hard to come to the notice of the President when you employ fewer than 200 people, and yet they deserve a voice, seeing as small and medium-sized businesses employ more than half of U.S. Workers.

So what solutions has the Council come up with?

• More training and education.
• Provide more loans.
• Require more energy efficiency, forcing people to hire construction workers to retrofit buildings.
• Cut red tape by streamlining the permitting process.

Wait! What was that last one?? Really? Big business wants us to allow new businesses to acquire new permits, thus allowing them to legally work? That sounds like a step in the right direction. Granted it's a fairly small step, considering the number of regulations hindering the creation of new companies and even new jobs. Let's see what the op-ed says:

• Streamline permitting. Cut red tape so job-creating construction and infrastructure projects can move forward. The administration can take a few simple steps to streamline the process of obtaining permits, without undercutting the protections that our regulatory system provides.

Um, does anyone know what that really means? Could it possibly mean that government needs to every once in a while get out of the way so businesses can do what they need to do to make money and expand and grow? And is that for all sectors of the economy, or is that inclusion of "construction and infrastructure projects" deliberate? And wait. What exactly is involved in the permitting process that they're willing to cut?

Between the permits construction workers alone must get, they have to get "permission" to work from everyone from the IRS, EPA, HHS, OSHA, NAHB, NHBC, and that's just at the National level, and is in no way exhaustive. For other businesses, the permitting process can be just as long and longer. There are countless impediments to creating and expanding business, let alone conducting the day to day work of the business, that many (like me) shy away from any thought of entrepreneurship.

Perhaps the Jobs Council should take a look at this article published by the Cato Institute, which describes regulation as the hidden tax on job creation. At the very least, the article exhorts the federal government to at least make their regulations clear and concise. As it is, you can spend years in a business and be shut down by a single audit, due to the confusing, arcane, and often contradictory regulations on the books. The contradictions range from one regulation agency contradicting another to a single agency contradicting itself.

It's no wonder job creation has stagnated and then plummeted. If by the regulations alone, it's amazing there are ANY jobs anymore.