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I wonder what would happen if Americans were unleashed to start businesses and create new enterprises working within a framework of the least amount of regulations at the state and federal levels.  Could we ever become like Hong Kong where you can open a business in one day?  I have opened one restaurant in Reno and helped open a second one.  Both restaurants took between six and eight months to open the doors, and these were simple restaurants.  

Governments are bureaucratic by nature; they cannot help themselves.  In a recent speech, former Senator James Buckley noted that in 1934 (after 145 years of Congressional activity) there was one volume of Federal statutes in the U.S. Code.  In 1970, there were 11 volumes.  At present (in 2019), there are 41 volumes of statutes, plus 242 volumes of Federal Regulations.  As I have so often written, the Federal Government has become the “impossible monster.”

I remember what Eric Hoffer once wrote in one of his small masterpieces, to wit: “Every great cause starts as a movement, becomes a business, and ends up as a racket.”  Mr. Hoffer’s great quote applies to representative government.  The question remains, “What would happen if Americans were unleashed?”  There is no telling how great things could be if we set people free to do their very best and got government out of the way.  I would love to see it.