Government Red Tape
Whether it’s layers of licensing requirements or endless red tape, government rules and regulations can stifle business. Learn how we can free up entrepreneurs.
Goldwater Institute attorney Carrie Ann Sitren spent an hour on KFNX's "Main Street Out Loud" show with Rudi K. where she discussed Preston v. Hallman (the Tempe tattoo case), just hours after a judge heard oral arguments.
"I keep thinking about our first lawyer who told us to not to fight the city's decision to refuse our permit because it would cost too much and we had no way of winning. We're just so thankful to Goldwater.
Tom Preston owns a reputable tattoo studio in Mesa, Arizona and like many entrepreneurs he sought to expand his business with his wife Elizabeth, by opening a new shop in Tempe. After acquiring the permit, the Preston's signed a five year lease and invested $30,000 in the property. Then a local neighborhood group sought to deny the Prestons their economic liberty by appealing to the City Council. Based on negative stereotypes and personal opinions rather than hard evidence and facts, Mayor Hugh Hallman and the Council voted unanimously to override their own zoning officials and denied the permit. The Prestons were left with a long-term lease and stood to lose a significant capital investment.
In 1998, the year Barry Goldwater passed away, the Goldwater Institute produced a short video about him.
If I live to be 120 years old, I wont hear another statement so brazenly and knowingly mistaken as the one uttered by Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) regarding the current financial crisis: The private sector got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it.
Say the statement out loud. Swish its sour taste in your mouth. This statement is the precise opposite of the truth. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank knows better.
An official from India, explaining his country's long embrace of socialism but more recent move toward free-market capitalism, provided a rather frank explanation for the change of heart: The fact is that one of the lessons you learn from history is that history sometimes teaches you the wrong lessons.
PHOENIX-In an important victory for consumers and free enterprise, the U.S. Supreme Court today struck down laws in New York and Michigan that make it a crime to buy wine directly from vineyards in other states, calling such laws discriminatory and anti-competitive. The decision may render similar Arizona laws unconstitutional.
The Goldwater Institute filed an amicus brief in Granholm v. Heald, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that wine distribution laws in states such as Arizona and Michigan violate the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Arizona wine consumers are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to buying wines they enjoy. A bizarre set of laws makes purchasing many wines impossible, despite the fact that such wines are widely available on the Internet.
In a November 2003 Goldwater Institute policy report, Mark Brnovich made the case for removing restrictions on the purchase and shipment of wine. As a follow-up to that report, this policy brief demonstrates how practical application of existing laws impedes consumer choice and hampers the free market.
- Read more about Trading Grapes Report Recommends Lifting Ban on Direct Shipment of Out-of-State Wine
PHOENIX-In a policy report released today, Goldwater Institute constitutional studies director Mark Brnovich urges Arizona to lift its ban prohibiting direct shipment of out-of-state wine to Arizona consumers. In his report, Trading Grapes: The Case for Direct Wine Shipments in Arizona, Brnovich explains how Arizona's ban violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, raises prices, and hurts Arizona's domestic wine industry.