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Listen to business

Originally published in the Frederick News-Post

Economic & Fiscal Policy

by Marta Hummel Mossburg

OP-EDS

Gov. Martin O'Malley says creating jobs is his top priority.

He proclaims the goal with the fervor of a religious zealot. "Maryland will lead the country, not only economically, but morally," he said during an August visit to Fisher BioServices in Wedgewood Business Park.

So far he has tried to achieve this vision by expanding government. He supported increases to the sales tax, corporate income tax and income tax in 2007. And he champions taxpayer subsidies to favored industries, including biotechnology. He also supports subsidies for health care coverage for small business and tax credits for hiring workers -- two reforms that failed miserably to achieve either of their goals.

While the unemployment rate in Maryland is lower than in the rest of the nation, O'Malley cannot take credit for it. New census data show the U.S. government shoveled $34 billion to contractors over the last fiscal year, a $9 billion increase from the previous year. And the state's myriad federal compounds have been hiring at a robust clip, according to national employment data. O'Malley's administration had nothing to do with either of those actions.

To create jobs, he should listen to people who run businesses.

Trish Date is one of them. She is co-owner and president of Baltimore County-based Rittenhouse Energy Services, where she was first hired as an assistant bookkeeper in 1986. The company sells home heating oil and commercial fuel, repairs heating and cooling systems, and delivers pool water.

She told her story at an Americans for Prosperity-sponsored meeting in July at Anne Arundel Community College.

As part of it she shared a few of the government regulatory agencies and subagencies she must report to or comply with -- over 25. She said the list does not include agencies responsible for local licenses or permits required for service, repair and new equipment installation.

"You would think with all of these agencies I would carry about 100 employees," she said. "Wrong -- I usually employ somewhere around 30 depending on the season," and "a lot of these agencies collect precisely the same data."

"Here are a few questions I continually ask -- why are there so many? And why don't they share information? Are they designed just to employ people? And why don't the people who are placed in charge of these agencies ask the same questions and do something about it."

For example, she wondered why one credential offered through the Transportation Security Administration requires the same information as the Motor Vehicle Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation and other TSA divisions.

The end result: "The consumer pays for it all. ... I spend more time answering to these guys than I do answering to you."

Date and the thousands of others like her in the state don't need another agency or commission to deal with small businesses. They need government bureaucracies eliminated so that they do not have to waste precious hours complying with duplicate requests for the same information. And as Date said, the state needs elected officials "to understand that there are consequences to their actions -- and not just at the polls or at the voting booth. Sometimes the laws that are put in place cause businesses to restructure their entire facility."

That is a message O'Malley and every elected official should tape to their walls this election season.

Marta Mossburg is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute. Contact her at mmossburg@mdpolicy.org.