Criminalizing Work and Harming (Almost) Everyone in the Process

Indeed, the Florida roofer case is a particularly good (bad) example of licensing gone wrong. As R Street’s Shoshana Weissman documented last week, this man was not a criminal. He was a licensed roofer in Texas with a sterling record who was arrested (and humiliated) after he completed a roofing job for a willing (not complaining) Florida homeowner and, quite insanely, just hours after he donated a barbecue dinner to storm-addled Floridians and the local police[.]

Sure, fraud and bad things can happen after big storms hit, but an arbitrary state gatekeeping system that turns this guy into a felon is in desperate need of reform—for economic and social reasons.