President Obama Is No Bill Clinton, But He Should Be

By Bernie Marcus

Monday, May 14, 2012

Since the financial crisis and throughout the sluggish economic recovery, working families and small-business owners have watched as the federal government has engaged in a grand experiment in government-led economic engineering. That experiment has failed.

The latest jobs report underscores the need to change our country's direction. April's unemployment rate was 8.1%, but if you include those who are underemployed, that rate shoots to 14.5%.

The unemployment rate has now persisted at over 8% for three years, longer than any period in modern history. Not to mention that there are nearly 4 million "missing workers" who have disappeared from the work force altogether.

It's probably not too difficult to convince most Americans that things are not going well.

Small businesses create two out of every three new jobs in America. When small businesses struggle, the entire economy suffers. Rather than encouraging economic growth, policies from Washington are making it difficult for small businesses to grow into bigger businesses. Massive government expansion into health care, banking and a wide variety of other areas has become a major hurdle to job creation — and small businesses are being hit the hardest.

The Home Depot is the fastest growing retailer in American history, but it wasn't always big. When we started in 1978, we began with two stores. Going from two to more than 2,000 was not easy. In today's environment, I'm not sure we could have started The Home Depot and survived, much less thrived.

The time, energy and manpower it takes for small businesses to comply with new and often duplicative rules takes away from their efforts to serve their customers and grow their businesses. Over the past three years, Washington has issued more than 10,000 rules that impose an estimated $16 billion in new costs. Small businesses, who often lack the teams of lawyers and compliance officers to sort through everything they're now required to do, are suffering disproportionately.

This is exactly why I partnered with other entrepreneurs to form the Job Creators Alliance, an organization that advocates on behalf of the small business owners who are struggling to survive amid an unprecedented regulatory onslaught.

At the root of this government intrusion is a fundamental distrust of the private sector. President Obama said that the idea that market forces should solve economic problems "fits well on a bumper sticker. But here's the problem: It doesn't work. It has never worked."

Although I retired from The Home Depot several years ago, I'm sure that the more than 300,000 Home Depot Associates would beg to differ. The reality is that the free enterprise system has worked for over 200 years in this country and is the bedrock of the American Dream.

This isn't about partisan politics. Although it's no secret that I support the Republican Party, I've worked with, and admire, many Democrats. Former President Bill Clinton found ways to work across the political aisle during his eight years as president and built a reputation as a "New Democrat," willing to come together on things like welfare reform, reducing the federal deficit, reining in federal spending and even declaring that "the era of big government is over."

To be sure, President Clinton's record was far from perfect. His health care proposal, for example, would have been disastrous if it had become law. However, on balance, he adopted a more accommodative approach towards business than the current president.

 President Clinton required government agencies to better account for the cost of regulations, worked with Congress to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens on banks, championed free trade agreements and liberalized regulations on airlines. The result? Over 22 million jobs created, a budget surplus and a slowdown in the rate of growth of the federal debt.

One of the key points President Clinton makes about his tenure in office is that he was able to engender support among the business community because he didn't attack them for their success. President Obama should take some lessons from this approach.

Today, we find ourselves at a critical juncture — and the future of the free enterprise system that has defined the American Dream hangs in the balance. As control of our economy increasingly shifts from the private sector to the federal sector, I fear that the American Dream that I've been blessed to live is slipping away from our children and grandchildren. It is our greatest national treasure.

Let us remember that free enterprise is what makes America great and unique. An economy that makes it hard for the next Home Depot to emerge is not what anyone should want. If we are to get the economy moving again, the first task of government should be to create an environment that allows the private sector to grow and thrive.