The Permission Slip Economy

Why does a licensed, credentialed professional with 20 years of experience need to convince government bureaucrats that her business is "needed" before she's allowed to open her doors?

That's exactly what happened to Ursula Newell-Davis in Louisiana. She holds a master's degree and a social work license. For two decades she helped kids with special needs. Families loved her. Then she tried to expand into short-term respite care — and Louisiana said no.

Not because she was unqualified. Not because she'd hurt anyone. Because she couldn't prove to a state bureaucrat that her services were necessary.

CON Laws: Government Picking Winners and Losers

This isn't a quirk. It's a system.

Thirty-five states and Washington, D.C. have what are called Certificate of Need laws — CON laws — requiring entrepreneurs to get government approval before opening certain businesses. According to John Stossel's reporting for the Daily Signal, Louisiana turned down 75% of applicants the year Newell-Davis applied. The state's own health department defense? It limits the "burden on regulators."

The government's excuse for blocking a trained professional from helping disabled children is that approving her application would be too much paperwork.

Anastasia Boden of the Pacific Legal Foundation is representing Newell-Davis in a lawsuit arguing the regulation is unconstitutional. "Louisiana gives you no clue about how to prove you're needed," Boden told Stossel TV. "Nobody can prove with any certainty that they're needed."

McDonalds can't prove it's needed. Neither can your local phone store. The market figures that out — NOT a bureaucrat in Baton Rouge.

Newell-Davis did everything the state asked. She rented office space. She paid fees. She wrote seven pages justifying her work's necessity. Still rejected.

Governor Jeff Landry's administration has NOT commented. State officials refused to speak with Stossel TV about the rule.

Meanwhile, Big Business Votes With Its Feet

While small operators like Newell-Davis get crushed by red tape, corporations with the resources to relocate are doing exactly that.

ExxonMobil's shareholders voted 71% in favor of moving the company's legal home from New Jersey to Texas, according to Allen Mendenhall's reporting in the Daily Signal. Proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis and ISS both warned shareholders the move might erode their rights. Shareholders didn't care.

Why? Because New Jersey has spent years treating energy companies as political targets. The state has pursued aggressive climate and environmental litigation against fossil fuel firms. Its corporate tax rate has hit 11.5% for large corporations, according to the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Texas has zero corporate income tax. Industrial electricity is cheaper in Texas too.

Exxon has operated out of Texas since 1989. Its New Jersey incorporation was 140 years old and meant nothing operationally. The move was long overdue.

Exxon isn't alone. SpaceX, Tesla, Coinbase, and Chevron have all made the same calculation. Red state. Lower taxes. Less regulatory hostility. Done.

The Two-Tier System

A two-tier economy operates in plain sight.

Tier one: Large corporations with legal teams, lobbyists, and billions in capital. When a state's regulatory environment gets too hostile, they relocate. They have options.

Tier two: Small business owners like Ursula Newell-Davis. They can't relocate. They can't afford years of litigation. They either navigate a system designed to crush them or they quit.

Left-leaning outlets cover the ExxonMobil story as a cautionary tale about corporate power and weakened shareholder protections. Right-leaning outlets cover it as a win for free markets. Few outlets connect it to the Ursula Newell-Davises of the world — the small operators who don't have a legal foundation filing suit on their behalf and can't move their families to Texas.

Both stories stem from the same problem: government interference in economic activity. The symptoms just look different depending on whether you have money.

What This Costs

When Newell-Davis is blocked from working, Kamal doesn't get help learning to socialize. His mother doesn't get to go back to work. The family loses.

When ExxonMobil leaves New Jersey, the state loses tax revenue, jobs, and economic activity. New Jersey residents — who had nothing to do with their attorney general's climate litigation strategy — absorb the hit.

The politicians who created these environments face zero personal consequences. The bureaucrats who rejected 75% of applicants still collect their paychecks.

The pattern is consistent: government creates barriers, government creates costs, and regular people pay.

The Solution

CON laws should be repealed. No state bureaucrat should have the power to decide whether a licensed professional's services are "needed." Markets answer that question. Customers answer that question.

States that want to compete for business — large and small — need to get serious about tax rates, regulatory burdens, and leaving entrepreneurs alone to succeed or fail on their own merits.

Louisiana's bureaucrats are blocking a social worker who wants to help disabled kids. New Jersey's regulatory environment pushed out a Fortune 500 company that had been incorporated there for 140 years.

Different scales. Same government dysfunction. Same people paying the price.