A few years back I was editing a business column for The Wall Street Journal , and I received an article written by George McGovern -- yes, the same former senator who ran for president under one of the most liberal platforms of all time.
Only, this George McGovern had changed -- a lot.
It seems that after he got out of politics, he invested some money in a small hotel in Connecticut, and as a small business owner he was getting killed by too many rules and regulations. Eventually, his business went bankrupt, partly because of the very regulations and laws that he helped design. It was only then that he began to repent for what he had done.
Here’s what he wrote:
“I wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day.”
Mr. McGovern came to realize that too many regulators and lawmakers have no idea how their rules and regulations will affect real business people in the real world. In fact, he suggested that each new regulation be given the following stress test:
"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."
As I watch a guy like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner -- someone who’s never run a business of his own -- propose all kinds of new rules and regulations to elected officials who’ve never run businesses of their own, I wonder if they’ve even considered applying Mr. McGovern’s stress test to their regs.
As George McGovern discovered, when you have to survive on slim margins in the real world, it has a way of radically changing your perception.
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