CL Homeowner's View Of Contractor Licensing
I to do not believe that we need contractor licensing for the following reasons:
1. I do not believe that government needs to be regulating business that already has been regulated. To my knowledge every builder is required to follow national standards to build a house, thus the need to buy the very expensive government mandated building permit. If the building inspectors cannot find the problem with the construction then how is a bureaucrat at a desk who is handing out the contractor licenses going to know the quality that a builder puts into the construction ? This brings me to my second point.
2. This requires a fee that is to be paid to the state so that they can say "look this person or company is licensed," but who is going to pay? The purchaser of the product will. This license does not mean that the person or company is necessarily going to be a better builder, just because of the license, but since there will be a lack of competition, it will mean that most or even all will have higher rates, as most licensed professionals usually have higher rates, and can be expected to raise them when there is less competition.
3. The most important reason that I believe this regulation needs to be sent to the round file is that today they will regulate through licensing the construction market. Then tomorrow, since they already have the department, they, the misled non-freedom believing big government hacks, will start wanting to license other trades. This will drive up costs for the people who use the products produced and cause unnecessary paper work for those who are trying to run a business. Thus the number of businesses that our economy could have in it will decline, thus putting people into lower income brackets. This is the type of government meddling that has choked the middle class out of America .
Let us not become like the State of Washington that has started falling apart economically because of its belief that big government is the only way to govern. This is not the role that the State of Idaho wants to play, at least not the role that I want to see.
Neil Oliver