To understand my motivation, pick up the November issue of Washingtonian magazine. The annual Salary Survey notes on Page 81 that top trade association leaders (industry lobbyists) make multimillion-dollar salaries to "keep tabs on what the federal government was doing or might do."
These outsize earnings are symptomatic of a disease that is slowly killing the American economy. We are creating so much regulation - over tax policy, health care, financial activity - that smart people have figured out that they can get rich faster and more easily by manipulating rules on behalf of existing corporations than by creating net new activity and wealth. Gamesmanship pays better than entrepreneurship.
When you lose your entrepreneurs, you lose all the way around and finally a Democrat that isn't willing to spew the party line but instead is willing to stand up and point out the flaw in what Americans have been told by Obama, Reid and Pelosi.
From an entrepreneur's perspective, we need a national campaign to create transparency in our legislation and a national moratorium on the creation of commissions, regulators and czars. It is time for Congress to do the hard job of saying what lawmakers mean in clear and easy-to-understand language.
It is also fair to hold our leaders to a standard of transparency. We should reject bills that are thousands of pages or that delegate vast authority to unelected regulators.
Make sure you read the entire piece.
Kudos Mr. Panner.
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