Skip to main content

Same Ol’ Story: Blocking Opportunity, Freedom, Prosperity


I know. Sometimes we sound like a broken record. ANOTHER blog about licensing? Long-term care administration licensing? Seriously? Does this theme not get old?


Well, yeah, it’s old. We wish we could stop writing about what may very well be the stupidest, most onerous, and most disgusting type of regulation on the books. Frankly, until something is done about it, we don’t believe we have a choice. And more should be getting done. This is not a partisan issue, after all. The Obama administration put out a white paper on the over-abundance of licensing in the United States and its deleterious effects.


Nevertheless, Oklahoma has a do-nothing Occupational Licensing Advisory Commission headed by Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn who clearly couldn’t care less. They rarely meet and almost never recommend that the legislature repeal a license.


Nonetheless, NOTHING is more fundamental to freedom than the ownership of oneself. Therefore, the most basic freedom we have is the right to sell our time – our skills and God-given talents – as we see fit. This ability is a pre-requisite, indeed what it truly means, to have freedom of opportunity – the opportunity to develop talent, to grow income, to obtain property, and to attain prosperity.


Licensing takes this fundamental freedom away. Licensing artificially constructs obstacles to selling skills and talents. Licensing denies opportunity. Licensing denies the ability for many to earn more income and gain greater prosperity for themselves, their families, and their communities. Licensing requires individuals to get permission from government to work in a chosen area, usually with that permission begged from a board with every interest in keeping people from joining their occupation.


Some might say, “Hey, wait a minute, when I got my license, all kinds of opportunity opened up for me!”


Yeah, and the same licensees, no doubt, resent the suggestion that their license be rendered worthless by having the law repealed, especially after the work and money they had to put in to get licensed. But if all that work and effort is rendered worthless by the mere repeal of the law, what does that say about the worth of the education, training, and other hoops required to get a license?


That work and money getting a license is partly the point. Most who have licenses will admit that much of what was required to obtain the license (not the skills, but the license itself) added nothing in value either to the licensee or to future customers. Licensing exams often bear little resemblance or applicability to the real world. Many of the courses required have nothing to do with actual practice.


Why does an electrologist (hair remover) need a 4-year college degree in science (Oklahoma being the only state with that requirement)? Most states don’t even license perfusionists but we do, and we require them to have a college degree! Why? Why do we license athletic trainers when California doesn’t? Why do we make it prohibitively expensive for out-of-state funeral directors and embalmers to move to Oklahoma? Last I checked, the skills needed don’t vary by geography.


Licensing is a mechanism for some who have been fortunate to climb the ladder of opportunity to pull it up behind them. Plumbers and barbers in Britain aren’t licensed. Nor are most lawyers. Meanwhile, we license massage therapists on the pretext that it’s a blow to human trafficking, no doubt a pretext promoted by massage therapists.


So, why are we licensing long-term care facilities administrators? Well, it’s not to make sure the best, most experienced managers in the state get into managing nursing homes. Nope, it’s just to block people from jobs currently occupied by people who’ve leapt the tall and expensive hurdle of getting a college degree in – oh, we don’t care – literally, anything.


Byron Schlomach is 1889 Institute Director; bschlomach@1889institute.org

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of 1889 Institute.

Popular posts from this blog

Robbing the Poor to Give to the Rich: Corporate Welfare in Oklahoma

Imagine that someone forcibly takes your hard-earned money and then simply gives it to a multi-billion dollar corporation such as Home Depot, Wal-Mart, or Boeing. You receive no benefit from this forcible redistribution of wealth, and the sole beneficiary is the corporation. You would most likely be outraged, and justifiably so. Unfortunately, this forced redistribution of wealth happens in Oklahoma (and the nation as a whole) all the time via a variety of state and local corporate welfare schemes.   Policymakers either take your hard-earned money (via taxes), and directly subsidize large corporations or give those corporations tax breaks nobody else can get. All of this is done in the name of jobs and economic development, but these favors bring very little (if any) benefit to you. This is tyranny, plain and simple. In fact, it is not unlike the sort of advantage nobility took of commoners before the American Revolution, only the modern nobility is just very good at lobbying. In ...
Read more

Introducing a New Plan for Public Education: Put Educational Practitioners (Teachers) in Charge

The author, Kent Grusendorf, served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives for 20 years (1987-2007), all but two as a member of Public Education Committee, which he chaired for four years (2003-2007). His prior elected experience was as a member of the Texas State Board of Education for three years (1982-1984). In addition to this blog, Grusendorf is author of an 1889 Institute report also based on his forthcoming book. Saving Public Education: Setting Teachers Free to Teach is the title of my forthcoming book, which explores a potentially new professional opportunity for teachers. Most teachers are in the profession because they love to teach. However, far too many leave the profession due to lack of respect, excessive external pressures, and general frustration. Many teachers stay in the profession, but yearn for greater freedom to just do what they love: Teach. Much of that frustration comes from mandates, and a lack of professional freedom. Well Intentioned,...
Read more

What if Legislators Were Licensed? Well, Just to Make a Point...

1889 Institute, as a general matter, objects to occupational licensing. We have written about it more than any other subject. The scant benefits simply do not outweigh the enormous costs to consumers and entrepreneurs, and  the  burdens that disproportionately impact the poor.   It must be noted that the remainder of this post is a work of satire. This should be obvious to anyone who has read even one of our papers, but each of the proposals below has an analogous provision in Oklahoma licensing laws. To those supportive of government-created cartels, these proposals might sound almost reasonable.  A material threat to the public safety and welfare has for too long gone entirely unregulated, unrestrained and unchecked. This menace has the power to corrode not only mere industries, but to corrupt the entire state economy. It’s no overstatement to say that the practitioners of this perilous profession hold the power to destroy democracy as we know it. After a...
Read more

COVID-19 Proves Our Schools Are Social Service Centers First, Education Institutions Second

There is no way the 180-day (or 1,080 hours) school year can be completed by the end of previously established school calendars for this year given the fact that spring break has now already been effectively extended an additional two weeks. One option would have been to extend the school year into the summer. Given the level of family togetherness being experienced now, and the fact that incomes are being lost and many would be interested in making up the losses, it’s not unreasonable to expect vacation plans to be radically remade or canceled anyway. Instead, Oklahoma’s State Board of Education precipitously closed the schools and did not call for an extension of end-of-school dates. Thus, the summer option has been foreclosed. The State Board is within its rights. Oklahoma statutes (70 O.S. § 1-109 E) state, “A school district may maintain school for less than a full school year only when conditions beyond the control of school authorities make the maintenance of the term imp...
Read more