Local Vs. Federal, Licensing vs. Regulation

In past posts, I have discussed two core talking points of the GOP:  Regulations vs. Jobs and Federal vs Local.

Specifically, one post talked about Regulations costing us jobs (Regulations-vs-jobs) and two posts discussed why the the local government causes problems while the federal government solves them (We-as-liberals-need-to-eliminate-lot-of regulations and Yes-government-is-too-big ).

I recently read a great article by one of the smartest conservatives, David Frum.   Click here to read his article

Note several things about what he wrote.

1. He talks about local regulations, not nation wide regulations.   Paris, for example has ridiculous limits on the number of taxi drivers.  That's just a city, not even a state.  Europe is for all effective purposes a single nation now, with local 'state' governments called France, Germany, etc.   None of the laws he mentions are Europe wide, and most aren't even state wide.
2. He talks about what a REAL socialism looks like - and it is very, very different from America or anything Democrats want.   Things like direct rules on how late stores stay open.  The Democrats, including Obama have nothing at all close to that rule (but the GOP does - in the form of bible belt laws restricting the sale of alcohol).
3. The rules he disparage are all what I called "people limiting" licensing regulations.   Limiting  the number of taxi drivers, preventing people from opening new stores without a license from the government. Limits on firing, which make you think twice about hiring.  As he said, "These are not macroeconomic issues."  They are LOCAL issues.

My point is as always: It is the local governments that screw things up  not the federal government and while some regulations are bad, most are pretty good, particularly federal level regulations.

P.S.  The solution to the Paris Taxi Driver is to give each existing driver Taxi Paris a second free license to run a taxi. They can sell the additional license or hire an employee. This solves the problem of not enough taxis in Paris and keeps the existing taxi drivers happy, instead of irritating them and make them strike.

In french:

La solution au problème de Paris Taxi Driver est de donner à chaque pilote existant Taxi Paris une deuxième licence libre de courir un taxi. Ils peuvent vendre la licence supplémentaire ou embaucher un employé. Cela résout le problème de ne pas suffisamment de taxis à Paris et garde les chauffeurs de taxi existants heureux, au lieu de les irriter et de les rendre en grève.