C-suite executives across multiple industries gathered at Temple on Oct. 15 to take part in Sen. Dave McCormick’s Red Tape Dialogues event, a bipartisan event designed to help identify solutions for reducing government regulations.
Temple recently served as the host for the Red Tape Dialogues, a bipartisan gathering focused on identifying solutions that would help cut red tape and tackle barriers that prevent business growth.
Photo courtesy of Sen. Dave McCormick's office
Time is money. And, as it turns out, the federal government and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania spends a significant amount of time completing paperwork.
“Federal paperwork alone is estimated to consume 11.5 billion man hours every year. Federal paperwork. That’s an annual labor of 5.7 million full-time workers a year. That’s not on federal bureaucracy, that’s just on paperwork,” said U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick at the start of the recent Red Tape Dialogues event held on Temple University’s campus. “Pennsylvania has more than 166,000 regulatory restrictions; that’s 22% more on average than other states. All of this comes with a cost.”
McCormick’s warning served as the impetus behind the event, which was held Thursday, Oct. 15, in the Temple Performing Arts Center. The bipartisan gathering was the first of its kind, as it brought together C-suite executives, industry executives, regulators and policy experts from across Pennsylvania to take part in real-time brainstorming sessions specifically focused on identifying solutions that would help cut red tape and tackle barriers that prevent business growth.
This was not a conference or a listening session. During the afternoon, attendees across 10 different industries broke out into breakout rooms where they were charged with working together to identify regulatory problems along with concrete, actionable recommendations for solving them. Some of the industries represented include life science and biotech, transportation and logistics, independent healthcare and elder care, housing construction, and higher education.
Prior to convening into breakout rooms, attendees heard talks from Ben Kirshner, chief transformation and opportunity officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Tom Rossomando, director of regional affairs in the Office of Advocacy for the U.S. Small Business Administration. The more than 100 industry leaders in attendance also heard from Doug Ducey, former governor of Arizona, who delivered the keynote address at the event.
“I applaud Senator McCormick for bringing Pennsylvania’s business leaders together today and leading the charge on regulatory reform,” said Ducey, who removed or improved nearly 3,500 government regulations during his time as Arizona’s governor.
Once their work in the breakout sessions was complete, each industry group returned to the Temple Performing Arts Center, where they presented their industry readouts to McCormick, Ducey and Temple University President John Fry for consideration.
“Recently, I was attending an event in the city where I was asked this question: ‘Aside from funding, what is one thing that government could do to better support innovation projects?’” said Fry prior to the industry presentations. “Today, as I stand before all of you, that question seems as relevant as ever. I will share the answer I gave that day. One hundred percent, we need to have oversight and accountability. But we also need to see processes streamlined and expedited from a regulatory standpoint. This is critical to our economic growth.
“I am grateful for Senator McCormick’s foresight and leadership in bringing together a variety of industry leaders who can work together to develop tangible recommendations to make our government work better for business,” Fry added. “Finally, while he is not here today, I want to recognize Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Over the last four years, Governor Shapiro has worked tirelessly to streamline government services, attract major investments and support business growth through targeted development initiatives.”
Over the next half hour, each of the 10 industry groups had a designated spokesperson present their recommendations. The catch was that each group had only three minutes to make their pitch.
Sen. McCormick’s office committed to compiling the recommendations generated during the Red Tape Dialogues into an actionable report within 60 days of the event. The report will then be shared with appropriate government officials for consideration.
