Jan 13, 2012: The President's speech (from My Visit To The White House)

Friday, January 13th, 2012 - What a day to remember!

10:30am - Attending President Obama's closed-press conference on improving the services that the Federal government provides to America's small businesses by having a more adaptive, responsive, flexible federal department devoted to economic growth and competitiveness. The President made it clear, "to meet the 21st century’s needs, we can’t have a 20th century government structure. CEOs are able to reorganize to meet demand and opportunity. Start-ups apply their muscle where it can be most effective. We need a new approach, devoted to helping American businesses to better compete in the global economy and maximize services for the American people."

 

As President Obama stated, there are six major federal departments or agencies that focus on business or trade: the U.S. Department of Commerce’s core business and trade functions, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

In his speech, the President asked the Congress for the authority to merge those six entities into a single department tasked with boosting American business and promoting competitiveness.

The way the system is currently organized, every entrepreneur who needs to do business with the government has to navigate a maze of overlapping regulations and competing bureaucracy.  Obama pointed at a chart that shows exactly how impossible that process can be. He referred to it as the "spagetti effect" picture and said that "a business looking to government resources starts here."

The President's proposed plan would change that. His goal is to consolidate the redundancies that currently exist, to cut waste, and eliminate duplication.  Small business looking for government resources will go to ONE department, ONE website, and ONE hotline.