Ask HN: What should I bring up at the White House's Startup America event?

If he really wants to help small business and startups, he can work to streamline and consolidate the taxes and regulations.<p>the problem is not so much the amount of taxes and regulations -- it is the fact that they are redundant, conflicting, and coming from EVERYWHERE! It seems that any govt agency that exists, from the town up past the USG to the UN, wants to stick a finger in my business and stir it or take something out.<p>As an example, I run a small high tech design and manufacturing shop (mostly carbon fiber and similar tech). This is THE MAJOR obstacle that has prevented us from hiring people for more than a few incidental projects. Simply too much paperwork, regulations, and requirements to be managed before I get the first employee in the door. Seriously, you need to hire an attorney, insurance and tax consultants, and accountants just to sort it out properly. Worse yet, even if I do this, I still cannot be sure that I'm fully compliant with all requirements, and some govt agent isn't going to knock on my door next month to tell me I need to meet another requirement.<p>If the POTUS could make a program to streamline and organize ALL the governmental aspects of a startup or small biz, it would be enormously helpful. If I could just go to one place (website, office, point of contact, whatever) and get fully setup, many more people would be hired.<p>This would also dovetail nicely with the recently announced program to reduce redundant oversight agencies, where multiple agencies regulate the same activity.<p>Oh yes, and simplifying the tax code would help too. when I say simplify, I mean take the <i></i>tens of thousands<i></i> of pages of tax law and regs, burn them to a fine dust, and replace them with something that can be written on three standard pages. I love that I'll be getting a nice tax credit this year for being a manufacturer, but I'd rather pay exactly the same as EVERYONE else (e.g., including GE), and not have to invest so much absolutely unproductive resources into complying with the so-called tax code.

As an example, we'll be mentioning the difficulties we've had with stewarding our patent application -- the Patent Office fees are reasonable (a couple hundred $$$) but the fact that a good lawyer is essentially required to write the claims (to the tune of several thousand dollars) is killer for a bootstrapping startup.<p>Additionally, though the Patent Office offers expedited patent issuance for qualifying clean/green tech, there are additional fees that must be paid for this service. Wouldn't a fee waiver or discount make sense to help spur innovation in these fields?<p>Links: Reducing Barriers Roundtables: <a href="http://www.sba.gov/content/startup-america-reducing-barriers-roundtables" rel="nofollow">http://www.sba.gov/content/startup-america-reducing-barriers...</a> Startup America: <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/startup-america" rel="nofollow">http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/startup-america</a>

How about mentioning that the movie and music-recording industries are pushing a concept called "intellectual property" that's probably false to fact. The consequences of their views of "intellectual property" have consequences to innovation and invention in just about every other walk of life that are detrimental to making progress, and preserving our culture.

Small business health insurance that doesn't cost a small fortune would be fantastic. I know this was a goal of the health care bill passed earlier, but I haven't seen anything to indicate something has actually changed.

By far the most important thing is financing. There is a huge gap between bank lending and angel/VC's.

Fix the patent system.

One thing that really needs to be addressed is fair and equal data access. This encompasses both issues of net neutrality and the legality of municipal networks (both wired and wireless)<p>To this end, I would really like to see a national effort similar to the undertaking of building out the physical highway system in the 50s, where we have a nationally sponsored robust, low cost fiber network.<p>Yes, I know this has a million details and complexities - but I would like to hear if there is any thought at all to such a concept.<p>The idea that we are to forever have the internet beholden to companies such as the big telecom carriers is a pretty bleak thought.<p>Municipalities should build out a local fiber infrastructure, and we should have federally sponsored backbone links.<p>They provide grants for high-speed rail - why not grants for high-speed data between major cities?