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When Licensing Isn’t Worth the Cost

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Tuesday, 15 September 2026

Written by John Hood

When economist and Hoover Institution scholar Thomas Sowell famously observed that “there are no solutions, only tradeoffs,” the North Carolina native wasn’t suggesting that public-policy analysis was useless. Sowell has spent much of his lengthy career engaged in it.
To say that doing X to achieve Y will inevitably cost Z is not to throw up one’s hands. It is merely to frame a series of questions for which there are at least partial answers. For example, what are the projected values of Y and Z? And can it be reasonably projected that doing X will actually accomplish Y?
Every dollar a government spends on, say, education or public safety is a dollar that cannot be simultaneously spent by government on, say, health care or transportation — or spent by the taxpayer who originally earned the dollar on something of his own choosing.
Unless you are an anarchist, you must grant that there are, indeed, circumstances in which it passes the cost-benefit test to collect those dollars as taxes and expend them on public services. And unless you are a socialist or deeply confused (I’ll distinguish the two as a gesture of good cheer), you must grant that there are circumstances in which it’s better to leave the dollar in private hands, either because the proposed program won’t work at all or because its benefits are too small to outweigh its costs.
The same principle applies to government regulation. While it compels private households or businesses to spend money rather than confiscating the money for government expenditure, tradeoffs are still inescapable. Every dollar spent installing scrubbers on smokestacks or taking classes to obtain a credential is a dollar that can’t be spent on something else with its own potential benefits. Similarly, every hour of time spent complying with regulation represents something not done during that hour.
Assessing the relevant tradeoffs can be very difficult. Agencies, regulated parties, and interest groups spend gobs of time and money attempting to quantify costs and benefits. So do think tanks and academic scholars. They could all be doing something else, so that’s another tradeoff! I happen to think sound policymaking is worth the expense.
For example, my John Locke Foundation colleagues and I have spent many years urging North Carolina lawmakers to scale back state-mandated licensure of occupations. Limiting the number of people allowed to deliver a particular good or service, or requiring the expenditure of much time and money to acquire such a permit, will necessarily impose significant costs on both consumers and prospective workers.
Those with licenses face fewer competitors and can charge more. Consumers shoulder the cost either by paying more or choosing less-desirable alternatives. Those excluded from licenses are forced into other occupations that pay less or that they value less.
Are these costs worth paying? Perhaps. If licensing physicians ensures safer, better-quality medical care, it might be worth it. If licensing barbers ensures fewer nicks or chemical burns, ditto. I suspect you probably agree with me that the former is a far likelier scenario than the latter.
Skeptics of North Carolina’s extensive occupational-licensing regime see more barbers in the story than we do physicians. We spotlight studies showing not just that licensing raises costs but that it often fails to deliver measurably better quality, safety, or protections against fraud.
The most recent example is a paper just released by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Taking advantage of a “natural experiment” — Uber drivers must be licensed as cabbies in New York City but not in neighboring New Jersey — the researchers found “no consistent evidence that occupational licensing improves consumer outcomes.”
Licensed drivers didn’t have lower accident rates or earn higher ratings from consumers. The authors also examined the case of Houston, where Uber drivers had to be licensed until a state law ended the requirement in 2017. “Deregulation changed the composition of the driver pool,” they concluded, “without changing measured performance.”
Tradeoffs are inevitable. Bad policy choices are not.

Editor’s note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

Troy's Perspective: In defense of mayor

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Tuesday, 08 September 2026

Written by Troy Williams

On Tuesday, Aug. 18, Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin appeared on the WIDU Morning Show, a program I regularly host. I was in the studio that morning, sitting approximately 15 feet from the Mayor and listening to the conversation firsthand.
The previous day, Councilmember Lynn Greene and former Councilmember Tisha Waddell had appeared in that same studio and were sharply critical of Mayor Colvin. When the Mayor joined us the following morning, it was clear that he was frustrated by some of what had been said. At the beginning of our conversation, I expressed my own disagreement with the tone and nature of the previous day’s discussion.
Mayor Colvin continued by saying he believed the personal attacks were unfair and, in describing what he witnessed, used the term “cooning.” That word quickly became the centerpiece of a much larger controversy. Some of the Mayor’s critics subsequently characterized his remarks as an insult directed at Black people generally, with some going so far as to suggest that he had called all Black people “coons.”
I was there. I heard the conversation firsthand. That is not what I heard him say, nor is that how I understood his remarks.
For the record, I am a Black person. I have been one for 71 years, and I certainly did not interpret the Mayor’s remarks as an attack on Black people. Had he been “throwing shade” at Black people generally, I would have been standing squarely within the group being insulted.
That does not mean people cannot object to the word he chose. They certainly can. Some may consider the term offensive, inappropriate, or unacceptable for an elected official to use. That is a legitimate debate. But there is an important difference between criticizing someone’s choice of words and changing the meaning of what that person said.
Within a day or so, a portion of Mayor Colvin’s remarks was isolated from the longer video and circulated on social media. Predictably, the edited clip took on a life of its own. Anyone who watched the full exchange would have had the benefit of hearing the remarks in full context and could have reached their own conclusion about what was said and intended.
But that is increasingly the nature of modern political discourse: isolate a few words, cut and paste them into a more damaging narrative, circulate the clip widely, and allow the controversy to outrun the context.
Anyone interested in determining what happened should watch the entire exchange—not simply a selected excerpt. Context does not require anyone to agree with the Mayor, excuse his language, or defend his choice of words. It simply allows people to hear the complete conversation and reach their own conclusions.
People are certainly entitled to criticize the Mayor’s choice of words. They are entitled to find the terminology offensive, inappropriate, or beneath the dignity of his office. But criticism should begin with an accurate representation of what was said and the context in which it was said. There is a meaningful difference between criticizing conduct and directing a racial insult toward an entire group of people. Based on what I personally witnessed, those two things should not be confused.

The Art of Formation

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Tuesday, 08 September 2026

Written by Dan DeBruler

From the advent of personal computing to the AI-infused versions of just about everything, I’ve long been fascinated with the technology that props up our world. In communications, knowing what’s new—or what’s coming next—is especially helpful.
As a career “early adopter,” though, I’ve learned something: it’s often more economical to buy the older model. There’s always plenty of buzz surrounding whatever is new. A year later, much of the excitement about that same product can be found on the clearance shelf when retailers need room for the next version. Sometimes it pays to wait.
By version two or three, somebody has discovered the bugs, identified the shortcomings, and figured out what sounded better in the sales pitch than it worked in real life.
That principle extends far beyond technology. I was reminded of it by two recent education stories. New York City Public Schools announced restrictions on generative AI use for younger students, while the American Psychological Association has raised concerns that educational technology can increase engagement and immediate performance without necessarily producing deeper learning.
Put those thoughts together and an important distinction emerges:
Getting something done and developing the human capacity to do it are not the same thing.
AI can write a polished paragraph, summarize a difficult chapter, solve a problem, or organize an argument in seconds. That’s impressive. But if a young person routinely bypasses the struggle required to develop those abilities, we may improve the product while weakening the process that produces a capable person.
And that becomes about much more than school. There’s no fast track to wisdom. There isn’t one for physical fitness either. Both require repetition, resistance, and time.
The same is true spiritually. We can listen to a sermon without wrestling with Scripture. We can read somebody else’s devotional without spending time in prayer. We can even ask technology to explain a Bible passage and give us three practical applications.
None of those things is necessarily wrong. But there’s a difference between receiving an answer and being formed through the process of seeking one.
Hebrews 5:14 speaks of people who “by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” James tells us not merely to hear the Word, but to do what it says.
Those phrases—constant use, trained themselves, do what it says—aren’t descriptions of shortcuts. They’re descriptions of formation.
Technology can be enormously useful. I certainly don’t plan to stop using it. But maybe the question we should ask about every new convenience isn’t simply, “What can this do for me?” We should also ask, “What might I stop learning to do for myself?”
Some struggles shouldn’t be eliminated too quickly. Wrestling with a problem is sometimes how we learn to think. Working through disagreement can teach patience. Sitting quietly with Scripture teaches us to listen. Doing the hard thing repeatedly can develop something in us that no shortcut can provide.
There’s no fast track to wisdom. Information can produce an answer. Formation produces a person.

Margaret: Sweet Dreams Not Made of These

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Tuesday, 08 September 2026

Written by Margaret Dickson

It is a cheesy question, but it resonates with me.
What keeps you up at night?
Like everyone else, I worry about my family and friends, what I did not get done on any given day, where my car keys might be, the dog who needs walking as does the owner, and all sorts of mundane but nevertheless real concerns.
I also worry about the really big problems staring all of us in the face from all over the world.
The horror that befell Nepal along its border with Tibet, bringing a stunning but unknowable death toll, is almost impossible to process. It is also almost impossible not to blame ourselves for ignoring climate change. Who could have ever envisioned walls of rushing water and mud bearing down on human beings at speeds between 70 and 120 miles an hour? Science may well find ways to mitigate rising temperatures and expanding seas, but we and those who come behind us will likely never experience our world the way it was before we of the 20th and 21st centuries heated it through fossil fuel use, clearing forests thousands of years old, industrial farming and livestock practices, and large-scale water consumption.
AI keeps me tossing and turning as well.
I use AI. It answers my questions on all sorts of topics, both serious and frivolous, and even wrote a Christmas story for my grandchildren with family members as characters, including the dog. But I, and I suspect millions of my fellow Americans, simply do not know what we do not know about AI, and that is profoundly dangerous. Think drones that hunt down other drones, and drones that choose their own targets. Is a drone that shoots to kill as morally accountable as a human being who does so? Is it moral for a parent supporting a family to lose employment to AI which has no family and no heart? How about the robot who won a race against human champions but who did not have enough “sense” to stop before it crashed into a wall? Will AI, like most other world-altering changes, be a force for good or for evil or for both?
And then, of course, there is the toxic and vicious political climate that is tearing—or has already torn—our nation apart. Millions of us no longer think of “us” as one country but as various collections of “us” and “them.” We now practice “never the twain shall meet,” much less talk civilly with each other. It is as if, in our 250th anniversary year, we have discovered the Biblical “tower of babel” where we hear other people’s voices but have no clue what they are talking about. Our national allies since World War II are no longer our close friends and may be edging toward adversaries as the whole world rearranges itself in part because of our almost incomprehensible political situation, leaving some Americans bereft and some who could not care less.
Do I have solutions for all that faces us? Are there solutions to all that face us, and, if so, are we willing to do the hard work that is necessary and which requires us to look beyond ourselves, our own experiences and opinions?
You and I do not have the solutions, and neither do the candidates who will be on our ballots in less than 60 days, no matter what they have said on the campaign trail.
The only course is to vote for the candidates who recognize and care about these issues, the ones who are willing to confront them, and who will address what ails us with clarity and courage.
We have learned the hard way that elections have consequences.