Strangling innovation with red tape

[Commentary] We are creating so much regulation - over tax policy, health care, financial activity - that smart people have figured out that they can get rich faster and more easily by manipulating rules on behalf of existing corporations than by creating net new activity and wealth.

Gamesmanship pays better than entrepreneurship. It is always hard to start a business. It is especially hard to start an innovative business, one that will foster a new technology or business method. Incumbent players in a market have an inherent advantage: Momentum counts for a lot, and it takes tremendous effort to get customers comfortable with a new product - or even to hear about it in the first place.

From an entrepreneur's perspective, we need a national campaign to create transparency in our legislation and a national moratorium on the creation of commissions, regulators and czars. It is time for Congress to do the hard job of saying what lawmakers mean in clear and easy-to-understand language. It is also fair to hold our leaders to a standard of transparency. We should reject bills that are thousands of pages or that delegate vast authority to unelected regulators.

[Panner is chief executive of TownFlier]