HB 1006 is a big old mess of a bill. The digest description characterizes the bill as being about “entrepreneurial know-how.” I might be throwing a friend from LSA under the bus by calling out that title since, when I was there anyway, it was the LSA drafters who have to come up with the digest information. But, you have to give them something to work with, and this one isn’t really a concise, easily described bill.
The first part tells the Secretary of State to develop a web site that’s essentially one-stop shopping for a business to submit information to the State about the business’ formation, existence, or other activities for the purpose of complying with the requirements of state law, including requirements concerning pre-establishment; establishment; registration; licenses or permits; filings or reports; and
transacting payments or refunds. I stressed the “including” because that means that means the list isn’t exhaustive. It’s not clear that the website has to be sufficient to allow the business to submit all of its information to the State – but it’s also not clear that any exceptions are contemplated. All other state agencies are directed to assist the Secretary of State in this endeavor. Money in the electronic and enhanced access fund may be used to develop and maintain the website.
Next the bill the bill requires the IEDC (Indiana Economic Development Corp.) to include, in its annual report to the general assembly, methods for collaborating with local economic development organizations and with economic development agencies in contiguous states and also requires the IEDC to collaborate with those economic development agencies.
Now, the bill shifts gears even more dramatically and allows high schools to develop entrepreneurship curriculum and submit it to the state board of education for approval. Finally, the bill requires the commission for higher education to inventory entrepreneurship programs conducted by colleges and display the inventory on the commission’s web site for the use of students, after consulting with the department of workforce development and the Indiana economic development corporation.
Whenever the term “Entrepreneur” evokes a hushed reverence you know no one in the audience ever worked for one.
Whenever I hear the word “entrepreneur,” I remember one of George W. Bush’s more embarrassing gaffes. It was during the widespread bashing of the French just after the invasion of Iraq (remember “freedom fries”?) He said “The French don’t have a word for entrepreneur…”
I just checked my French-English dictionary to see how ‘entrepreneur’ would be translated into English for American speakers.The first meaning given was ‘contractor’.This is probably apt for present day American culture. Of course ‘contractor’ has now been corrupted to some extent by the experience of ‘Iraqi contractors’ working for Halliburton and more fly-by-night free market ‘entrepreneurs’ who made up rules where there were none,or none were enforced,like the guys at my gym who were flipping houses to become millionaires at age 30.
So George Bush had a point that the French have no word for ‘entrepreneur’,but that’s because French culture doesn’t lend itself to entrepreneurship in the American sense .In French an entrepreneur is simply someone in charge of a business,such as ‘entrepreneur des pompes funebres’ or in English, ‘an undertaker’.That’s not to say that American usage has not to some extent re-defined French usage.The Acadamie Francaise so adamantly defends the French language from English corruptions,especially American usage.
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