No hoverboard? Blame big government

By Nancy Pfotenhauer

'Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!"

That was Doc Brown, the mad scientist of Back to the Future fame - and today, Oct. 21, 2015, is the future date he and Marty McFly plugged into the DeLorean in the movie's 1989 hit sequel.

In that futuristic world, Americans enjoyed any number of advanced technologies. Flying cars, hoverboards, power-lacing shoes, you name it. And who could blame us for thinking this was possible by 2015? The 1980s were one of the most economically strong decades in history, driven by falling taxes, a strengthening dollar, and deregulation of entire industries. As far as anyone was concerned, the only way was up - and we were going there fast.

Yet while technology has certainly advanced since then, it has been far surpassed by the growth of our government. The massive regulatory state has stifled countless entrepreneurs and innovators since Doc Brown and Marty McFly's heyday.

As a result, the boundless possibilities we saw in Back to the Future have too often been held back by bureaucratic proliferation.

Look at the explosion in federal regulations. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, last year there were 77,687 pages of federal regulations that cost American consumers and businesses nearly $1.9 trillion. The Obama administration alone has added more than $600 billion in annual economic costs.

That's money that could develop the next world-changing technology, surpassing the personal computer, the iPhone, or the self-driving car. Instead, it's going to lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists - none of which move America forward.

There have also been unprecedented government intrusions into entire industries. While both parties have played their part, two of the worst examples have happened under the Obama administration: the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial legislation.

The Affordable Care Act may have been passed with noble intentions, but it has turned American health care into a monolithic bureaucracy. Its 2,700 pages of legislation and accompanying 13,000 pages of new regulations have put a straitjacket on insurers, physicians, and patients. This has spurred a mass consolidation of the health-care industry, leaving the rest of us with higher costs and fewer options.

Pennsylvanians and New Jerseyans know this all too well. The Keystone State's two largest insurers participating in the exchanges have proposed premium increases of more than 25 percent for 2016, while others are seeking increases of more than 40 percent. In New Jersey, half of the state's 208,000 residents receiving health insurance through the exchanges are facing double-digit premium hikes next year.

Dodd-Frank is hardly any better. This single federal law has spawned 398 new regulations that added $22 billion in compliance costs and 61 million hours of paperwork each year.

This is crippling to small and midsize banks. Thanks to the regulatory burdens they face, it's all but impossible to compete against the biggest banks. Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein put it bluntly, saying federal regulation has "raised the barriers to entry higher than at any other time in modern history."

Perversely, consumers also lose, with fewer options at higher costs. Dodd-Frank's "Durbin amendment" - named after Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) - imposed price controls on debit-card fees. That has contributed to a nearly 50 percent reduction in the share of banks still offering free checking accounts.

It's not just the health-care and banking industries suffocating under an out-of-control federal government. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more businesses are now dying than are being created - something that's never happened.

That's not the future Doc Brown and Marty McFly imagined when they plugged Oct. 21, 2015, into the DeLorean. And that's why it's imperative that we elect leaders who will reverse this trend. We must get government out of the way so entrepreneurs and innovators can make the breakthroughs, the discoveries, and the radical advances that seem like science fiction but could be right around the corner.

The next year will be crucial in determining whether this actually happens. As we evaluate the various candidates running for the White House, we should ask ourselves a simple question: Which candidate will actually bring us closer to making Back to the Future a reality?

Nancy Pfotenhauer is the president of MediaSpeak Strategies and the former chief economist for President George H.W. Bush's Council on Competitiveness. nancy.pfotenhauer.mss@gmail.com