Marketplace reality eludes legislators

George Stanley McGovern was a U.S. representative, U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election.

After he retired, he invested most of his earnings in acquiring the leasehold on Connecticut’s Stratford Inn. McGovern’s trials and tribulations as a small business entrepreneur are documented in a 1992 Wall Street Journal column.

Rube Render

McGovern laments his lack of knowledge and firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. He acknowledges that this hands-on understanding would have made him a better senator and a more understanding presidential contender.

He goes on to state, “But my business associates and I also lived with federal, state and local rules that were all passed with the objective of helping employees, protecting the environment, raising tax dollars for schools, protecting our customers from fire hazards, etc. While I never have doubted the worthiness of any of these goals, the concept that most often eludes legislators is: ‘Can we make consumers pay the higher prices for the increased operating costs that accompany public regulation and government reporting requirements with reams of red tape?’

“It is a simple concern that is nonetheless often ignored by legislators.”

One begins to see the same lack of knowledge and experience evident in Hillary Clinton’s response to the question, “Why are you a better choice than your opponent to create the kinds of jobs that will put more money into the pockets of American workers?” asked during the presidential debate on Monday.

The type of job Clinton wanted to establish included a laundry list of benefits such as raising the minimum wage, profit sharing, paid family leave, earned sick days, affordable child care and debt-free college.

Clinton’s response is exactly the same — “federal, state and local rules that were all passed with the objective of helping employees” — that McGovern laments above.

McGovern concluded his 1992 column with, “In short, ‘one-size-fits-all’ rules for business ignore the reality of the marketplace. And setting thresholds for regulatory guidelines at artificial levels — e.g., 50 employees or more, $500,000 in sales — takes no account of other realities, such as profit margins, labor intensive vs. capital intensive businesses, and local market economics.”

George McGovern was one of the more liberal candidates to run for the presidency during my lifetime. This fact makes his judgment all the more persuasive.

Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” is probably too long a read, but McGovern’s column should be required reading for legislators at all levels who seek to regulate business.

Incidentally, McGovern’s business went bankrupt.

Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at:

[email protected]