I worked hard to make my own smallcompany into a big one but I never could have succeeded if I had faced theavalanche of impediments that our current government hurls down upon thisgeneration of entrepreneurs. The White House’s job creation strategy seemsdesigned to merely raise taxes while it appoints another blue-ribbon council totalk about the lack of jobs.  Does anyone really believe this will createthe employment growth this country needs?  I certainly don’t.  What Ido believe is that we must bring together the hard-working men and women whoare on the front lines of job creation – small and medium-sized businessfounders and owners -- to light the way to renewed economic growth. 

By giving real job creators -- whether shopkeepers or software engineers -- avoice, they can speak from real-world experience about how to create jobs andwhy job creation can’t be accomplished from Washington. I believe thesebusiness men and women could point out the policies that are obstacles andarticulate policies that invite growth and investment, and most importantly—jobcreation.  Who better to defend free enterprise than entrepreneurs whohave actually created America’s private-sector jobs?  

These companies – high-tech and low, restaurants and retail stores,manufacturers and bakeries – are the businesses that drive job creation. Halfof all American workers are employed at a small business and they havegenerated two out of three new jobs over the last 15 years. We can’t have aserious conversation about reducing unemployment without listening to thecompanies that aren’t on the Fortune 500 list.  

Overregulation, unfair taxes, and new mandates, like the controversialhealthcare bill, are choking these job-creating businesses before they can getoff the ground.  The President’s State of the Union Address included callsto increase trade and cut corporate taxes, all things that help big businessesalright, but do little to help the small enterprises and start-ups that are theengines of economic growth. They need relief from the alphabet soup ofregulations that stifles them and therefore chokes hiring.

From the EPA to the FDA, from the IRS to Sarbanes Oxley, regulationsdisproportionally affect the smallest firms, drowning America's entrepreneursin red tape.  According to a study published last year by the SmallBusiness Administration, firms with fewer than 20 employees spend 36 percentmore per employee than large firms.  Regulations, on average, cost smallfirms $10,585 per employee each year: $4,120 to comply with economicregulations, $4,101 to comply with environmental regulations, $1,585 to complywith complex tax rules, and $781 to comply with OSHA and homeland securityregulations.  In fact, more than 144,000 pages of regulations stranglesmall and large businesses alike. Congress must provide these innovators abreak.  

I know dozens of men and women who started with nothing, waiting in the hallwayhoping the mailman would bring enough receipts to make payroll, working throughthe night, foregoing their own salaries so they could pay their bills, and yetfretting over filing a raft of forms for local, state and government regulatorsand worrying about bewildering new rules.  These are the true job creatorsand many feel downright abused by a government that ignores them, penalizesthem and goes out of its way to impede their businesses.

These job creators want to grow their businesses, they want to hire newemployees and they understand that they need to pay fair taxes.  But theydon’t have a forum, they don’t have a voice, and they are frustrated whenacademics and life-long government employees – bureaucrats who know nothingabout creating jobs -- determine policies that could either spur or stifle jobgrowth. The heroes of the American economic dream are the people who take therisks, make the sacrifices, and still maintain the beliefs that propel them tosuccess.   

These job creators must tell us what policies they need to grow their businessand put America back to work. I am now calling on all business founders, ownersand leaders to join me in the ranks of the American Institute for Growth, a neworganization I am proud to help create. Join me in this quest to allow freeenterprise to not only heal our wounded economy, but to return us to theeconomic growth that we need to create jobs across America.