How Obama Puts the Brakes on Business

[Commentary] President Obama is damaging the economy in a number of ways, but one often overlooked infliction is regulatory uncertainty. The administration has been unclear, to put it charitably, about how it plans to regulate entire sectors of the economy. And it's killing jobs, hurting the middle class, and limiting the country's potential for growth.

Let's begin with a recent example. On Sept. 26, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking outlining potential new media-ownership rules that eliminate the so-called UHF discount. The change would affect how the FCC determines whether a station owner has approached a 39% cap on nationwide audience that can be reached by a single owner. The proposed FCC rules aren't just complicated. They won't even be final until next year at the earliest because the FCC can take however long it sees fit—sometimes more than a decade—to promulgate rules. Even worse, the commission says whatever rules the FCC dreams up in the future will be applied retroactively. So between now and when the new guidelines become final, no one knows the rules of the game. And companies have to be prepared at all times to adhere to a new set of regulations that are still a glimmer in the FCC's eye. This leaves one of the economy's only flourishing industries at the mercy of bureaucrats in Washington.