No license for Joe? So what

Bill Steigerwald, Commentary
East Valley Tribune (Phoenix)

Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, the Republican Party’s newest working-class hero from Ohio, has been ridiculed and had his private life probed since he had the nerve to confront Barack Obama about taxation.

For liberals, one of Joe’s biggest crimes against humanity — besides apparently owing about $2,000 in back taxes — is the charge that he works as a plumber but doesn’t have a plumber’s license.

In Ohio, Joe’s not required by law to get a license before he can practice plumbing. But he needs to get a license if he decides he’d rather make his living as an accountant, architect, barber, chiropractor, cosmetologist, dental hygienist, dentist, paramedic, funeral director, hearing aid fitter, insurance agent, land surveyor, lawyer, nursing home administrator, nurse, occupational therapist, optometrist, pesticide applicator, pharmacist, physical therapist, physician assistant, physician, podiatrist, psychologist, public school teacher, real estate agent, real estate appraiser, school counselor, stock broker, social worker, truck driver, veterinarian or vet’s assistant.

Before Joe Wurzelbacher or anyone else wants to become Joe the Barber or Joe the Podiatrist, he must first get the permission of his state government.

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Controlling Piercing Controls Self-Expression

While a war rages in Iraq, and thousands die of AIDS and starvation in underdeveloped countries, Americans are debating piercing. According to Leigh Carter of The East Carolinian, body piercing is an ancient practice; even Otzi the Iceman had an ear piercing. Furthermore, in the Bible, ear piercing and nose piercing are mentioned. In ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations, tongue piercing was evident among the affluent — though in their case it was a blood ritual.

Clearly, America's current fascination with piercing is nothing new. From a historical perspective, it is merely a continuation of practices already ingrained in our society. It is a form of self-expression, and a part of certain cultural identities. Women in India, for example, have been practicing nostril piercing for centuries. So if piercing is as common as history (ancient and current) suggests, why would lawmakers in New York consider banning certain piercing?

Supporters of the ban claim that it's meant to protect consumers. It's a simple fact that there are health risks involved in piercing. Complications such as infections are the most common, but obviously anything could go wrong. But the government cannot expect to baby consumers. Since most states have laws that require minors to have parental consent for piercing, any further legislation prohibiting certain types of piercing would be challenging an adult's ability to make a decision. Which means people eighteen years of age or older are capable of deciding who can lead America as President, but cannot be trusted to make an intelligent decision about decorating their bodies.

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Arizona bars online home price estimator

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHOENIX -- Arizona regulators have ordered a Seattle-based online home price estimator to stop doing business in the state.

The Arizona Board of Appraisal issued two cease-and-desist letters to the company that operates the popular real estate Web site Zillow, saying it needs an appraiser license to offer its "zestimates" in Arizona.

"It is the board's feeling that (Zillow) is providing an appraisal," Deborah Pearson, the board's executive director, said Friday.

Zillow warns users the estimates it provides are not a definitive value but a starting point for consumers. Launched in February, 2006, the company claims it has 4 million users a month, including people wanting to how much their homes - or their neighbors' homes - are worth.

The site has been criticized by real estate professionals and others concerned about its accuracy.

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Legislators should mind their own business

Make-work measures
Legislators should mind their own business

Most of the nanny-state measures churned out by legislators at the state and federal level are based on an insulting premise — that most Americans are mindless Bozos who can’t think for themselves or act in their own best interests. A nanny-statist, as we define the term, is someone who purports to care more for people than people care for themselves. And with statists firmly in charge at the Statehouse, there’s no shortage of such measures still in play, according to “Bills would provide business oversight,” a report in Monday’s Gazette.

“Oversight,” of course, means licensing, regulating and more barriers to entrepreneurship. And most of the trades or businesses in the crosshairs don’t need more of this, if we assume — as we do — that Coloradans are competent consumers. An argument might be made — might — for state licensing of naturopathic doctors, since they can have a direct impact on public health and safety. But most of the other trades on the regulator’s wish list — including sports trainers, landscape architects, plumbing contractors, interior designers, luxury limousine operators and moving company workers — are best regulated not by the state, which has better things to do with its resources and people, but by the market, which can sort the wheat from the chaff with ruthless efficiency, assuming consumers exercise a modicum of due diligence.

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A Dream Deferred: Legal Barriers to African Hairbraiding Nationwide

by Valerie Bayham

Introduction

The District of Columbia government once threatened hairbraider Pamela Ferrell and her husband Talib-Din Uqdah with fines and jail time for practicing their craft without an unnecessary government license. But this year, the entrepreneurial couple celebrate their twenty-fifth year in business and the “little” shop the government once tried to shut down is thriving, providing opportunity not only for Ferrell and Uqdah, but for the dozens of women they’ve trained over the years who have now gone on to start their own businesses.

Now, if only the rest of the nation would learn from this and similar success stories and remove government barriers to honest enterprise now imposed on hairbraiders. D.C. once ordered hairbraiders to take 1,500 hours of irrelevant training to get into business. But now hairbraiders are braiding, customers are satisfied and the D.C. city government collects taxes from businesses that would otherwise have been forced into the underground economy.

Despite this and similar success stories in Arizona, California, Mississippi, Minnesota and Washington, other states continue to impose arbitrary and stiff licensing burdens on would-be hairbraiders—making no one happy except those protected by these government-imposed cartels.

Determined to help other entrepreneurial braiders break these chains, Uqdah founded the American Hair Braiders and Natural Haircare Association (AHNHA). As president, he has worked with braiders across the country to challenge cosmetology regulations that arbitrarily restrict the right to braid for a living with needless coursework and examinations. He views his struggle for economic liberty—the right to earn an honest living—as fundamental to the success of America and for the African-American community. Today, he is more passionate than ever that braiders do not belong in the cosmetology regime. And his message—of passion, skill, opportunity and hard work as the only entrance requirements to the braiding profession—is winning the war one small battle at a time.

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Government regulation goes step too far in Nevada

by George Will

PHOENIX - In the West, where the deer and the antelope used to play, the spirit of ''leave us alone'' government used to prevail. But governments of Western states are becoming more like those elsewhere, alas.

Consider the minor - but symptomatic - matter of the government-abetted aggression by ''interior designers'' against mere ''decorators,'' or against interior designers whom other interior designers wish to demote to the status of decorators. Some designers think decorators should be a lesser breed without the law on its side.

Those categories have blurry borders. Essentially, interior designers design an entire space, sometimes including structural aspects; decorators have less comprehensive and more mundane duties - matching colors, selecting furniture, etc.

In New Mexico, anyone can work as an interior designer. But it is a crime, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and up to a year in prison, to list yourself on the Internet or in the Yellow Pages as, or to otherwise call yourself, an ''interior designer'' without being certified as such. Those who favor this censoring of truthful commercial speech are a private group that controls, using an exam administered by a private national organization, access to that title.

This is done in the name of ''professionalization,'' but it really amounts to cartelization. Persons in the business limit access by others - competitors - to full participation in the business.

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