Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch making it easier for businesses - commentary

I received an email from the Secretary of State. I included a portion of it below, specifically because of the assertion she makes about making it easier to do business in Montana. Turns out, she's not really saying that, she's really saying she wants it to be easier to comply with the myriad regulations and hoops businesses have to jump through.



So there are several links in the online business resources section. The first link brings you to this handy-dandy guide to starting a business. But if you thought it would show you how to start a business, you would be wrong. What it actually is is a list of 8 government obstacles to starting a business in Montana.

The second link brings you to a handy list of administrative rule changes, making it so easy to know the minute details of how government arbitrarily changes things.

The third link actually has some good information, but one might wonder why the Secretary of State is dealing with this at all. Is it part of the charge given to the SOS office under law? Or is it one of those "helpful" things government likes to do, the cumulative effect of which is to make people think that that answers to their questions and problems is found in government?

The fourth link brings you to the hundreds of government forms you may or may not need in order to run a business in Montana.

Now, these are not the only links on the SOS website. There are dozens of others. Can you imagine? She's going to help you negotiate your way through the treacherous waters of government regulation, rather than reduce that government regulation.

She concludes by saying, "we're working to help your business succeed." How nice that the oppressive nature of government is found in just a few websites!