Entrepreneurship

Republicans are not likely to cooperate with Obama on much, but he might have one offer they might find hard to refuse. How about an initiative to remove obstacles to entrepreneurship? My guess is that a lot of Americans might start businesses if there weren't so many such obstacles. Here are a few, and my ideas for fixes:

1)Taxes. There are a bewildering complexity of taxes on businesses of every size, and their complexity imposes special difficulties on the small business. Solution: replace all taxes on small businesses with the easiest tax to administer: a value added tax (VAT). In particular, this would mean that all payroll taxes would be eliminated. Their revenue would be replaced by the VAT.

2)Many would be business starters are discouraged by the fact that quitting their jobs at Megacorp would cost them their health insurance. Replace employer based health insurance by a government administered basic health insurance plan (kids + catastrophic + limited extras) plus income based vouchers for other insurance.

3)Simplify regulatory complexity for all businesses except those posing major hazards.

There are doubtless many other ways to do this, but keep the focus on encouraging business formation. A small company's largest expense should not be its accountant.

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