Offering to shovel snow.

Matt Molinari (left) and Eric Schnepf, seniors at Bridgewater-Raritan High, went door-to-door in Bound Brook on Monday evening passing out fliers offering to shovel snow from driveways. (Photo courtesy of Matt Molinari).

By Nick Sibilla



Just in time for this year's big snowstorm, Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill last month that scrapped one of the state's silliest laws: a ban on offering to shovel snow without a license. The bill was inspired by two enterprising teens who made national headlines last year.



Ahead of an impending snowstorm, Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf went door to door in Bound Brook, passing out fliers advertising their readiness to shovel snow. But like too many budding businessmen, they were stopped by a force greater than Mother Nature -- the government.

Police pulled them over and told the two to stop. Under the borough's municipal ordinance, door-to-door solicitation is only legal with a permit, which can cost upwards of $450. Fortunately, as Matt put it, the police "weren't jerks" and didn't arrest or cite the two teens.



Now under the newly signed legislation, kids, teens and adults can offer to shovel snow within 24 hours of a predicted snowstorm, without having to worry about running afoul of local ordinances.



But Matt and Eric's story also highlights just how pervasive red tape has become in today's economy. More than one out of every five workers in New Jersey needs a license from the government before they can legally do their jobs. During the 1950s, that number was one in 20 nationwide.



Many of these licenses are incredibly burdensome. In 2012, a report by the Institute for Justice found that, in New Jersey, licenses for low- and middle-income occupations requires over 290 days of education and experience on average. But for emergency medical technicians -- who quite literally hold others' lives in their hands -- that figure is a mere 28 days. In fact, athletic trainers, barbers, cosmetologists, locksmiths, makeup artists and massage therapists all need far more training for their licenses than EMTs do.



Licensing laws have even thwarted charity groups. Take Remote Area Medical. Originally created to provide health care for those deep in the Amazon, RAM now focuses most of its resources on running free, mobile clinics across the United States. Since its founding, the group has held more than 700 clinics, helping over half a million patients.



In 2014, RAM wanted to operate a two-day clinic at the Javits Center in Manhattan. Expecting to serve an estimated 7,000 patients, RAM raised $3 million and amassed 500 dentists and 2,500 volunteers.



But no good deed goes unpunished. Two weeks before the clinic was slated to open, New York canceled the event. State officials ruled that the charity's "plan to operate a dental and health clinic is not allowed under New York State licensure laws."



While several states have enacted laws that allow doctors, dentists and other licensed medical professionals to volunteer their services across state lines, New York is not one of them. That inflexibility meant thousands of people, the vast majority of whom were uninsured, were forced to forgo vital care.



Licensing has certainly gone too far when it ensnares everyone from snow-shoveling teens to dentists trying to do good. Fortunately, the fight to roll back licenses, pursued for decades by groups like the Institute for Justice, is growing and has lately earned support from all across the political spectrum, ranging from the Heritage Foundation to President Obama's economic advisers.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to scrutinize these laws. Just as the East Coast dug itself out of the snowstorm, lawmakers would be wise to dig Americans out of a government-created mess of occupational licenses.

Nick Sibilla is a communications associate at the Arlington, Virginia-based

Institute for Justice.