Duplicity

My dad and I had a fun phone conversation this afternoon. He and I have enjoyed attending Building Contractor Association (BCA) meetings together this last year. Dad wasn't able to attend today's meeting as he stayed home with Mom as she is recoverying well from her hip surgery. The phone call was to give him a report of what went on in the meeting and I had to related to him the tale of of my latest rabble-rousing.

The BCA is made up of builders and their associates like trade contractors, real estate agents, title companies, etc. Generally, they are a pretty conservative group politically. Any time there is talk of a fee increase by the city or county related to building permits or impact fees, the BCA rallies the troops to stop undue government intrusion and regulation on our industry.

Incongruently, one of the prime goals of the BCA over the last couple decades, and much of Dad's personal effort, has been to mandate contractor licensing in the state of Idaho. Some of you may be laughing thinking that we are a backward state for not having licensing. We are in backwards in some ways, but I consider Idaho in this regard to be one of the last bastions of liberty and nearly a free market. Contractor licensing invites the government to regulate our industry all the more, so I just had to point out the hypocrisy of the BCA members working so hard on passing mandatory licensing. Sorry Dad!

I have to question the motive behind such a duplicitous move. As they talked in the meeting about why they want licensing I kept mutterling under my breath, loud enough for those near me to hear "Socialism!" It got a few laughs and after my rant the chairman said, "Tell us how you really feel about it."

"Real" builders would like to banish the fly-by-night builders that cheat customers. My dad was able to articulate to me a very valid point that his major concern is that if each city and county creates their own licensing rules that the result would be chaos, therefore a pre-emptive state licensing regulation would be the lesser of the evils. But what I think it really comes down to is that the "real" builders want to stiffle competition so they can make more money themselves. How anti-free-market is that?! I argued that the down-market is cleansing itself of the riffraff and that lenders will no longer lend to builders that don't have a good reputation and good credit. Trust the market to solves its own problems! It may not be in the time frame you would like and it may cause you to work harder to compete, but that is all a tolerable risk for the price of liberty.

My dad is probably the best natured and most lovable guys in the world. He agreed with me that it is human nature that we hate the laws that negatively impact us and we love the laws that positively impact us, even at the expense of others and our liberty. I love laws that expand our liberty and uphold our rights. I love laws related to punishing injustice.

Thanks for putting up with a rebellious son Dad. I love ya!

Additional Note: Dad wanted to remind me that he had other argument for the BCA supporting contractor licensing. The Idaho Building Officials would like first dibs at having the control over licensing. While there are good inspectors/code officials out there, there are some that seem to simply enjoy their position of power and abuse their role. It would be better to have some other state agency regulate licensing.