At a recent John LaWare Leadership Forum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, I joined a panel of business leaders to discuss “What Keeps Us Up At Night.”

My comments were as follows:

• Massachusetts was once known as Taxachusetts. Unfortunately, we are now becoming known for our cumbersome local and state regulatory system.
• This problem has grown over the last two decades to the point that it is an inhibitor of job growth.
• The problem on the local stage is a lengthy, unclear, and unpredictable permitting process with specialized regulatory bylaws that further raise the conservative thresholds established by the state.
• On the state level, regulatory agencies have operated in an economic vacuum for too many years, unconcerned with the impacts of their rules on business growth and competitiveness. Rarely, if ever, are cost/benefit analyses performed on proposed regulations to determine, in advance, their impacts on businesses.

Market risks are enough to make new innovative businesses think long and hard before starting up.  Massachusetts should not be adding unreasonable delays and uncertainty to this important economic engine.