Nearly two dozen Broward County business leaders and government officials joined together at Port Everglades, a driving force for business expansion in South Florida, for a White House Business Council Roundtable meeting to connect local business owners with the President Barack Obama's Administration.
 


Port Everglades hosted the Roundtable for invited local business owners on August 9, 2011, to share their experiences with Joseph C. Szabo, Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. Szabo's role was to listen to business leaders about the challenges they are facing and then to bring their voices to Washington.
 


"Making a real connection between front-line business owners and the federal government is the only way the Administration can improve U.S. economic competitiveness. First-hand feedback about what the Federal government should do more of - and less of - to help jumpstart the economy is invaluable." Szabo explained to the invited business leaders that the government is looking for ways they can help businesses expand, create jobs and improve the economic base in their area.
 


The Roundtable meeting participants represented a broad spectrum of businesses who discussed similar challenges they are now facing including economic conditions, competition, the difficulty for small businesses to secure capital from banks for growth, their work forces, the increasing costs of health care, government regulations, costly federal mandates, pending free trade agreements, funding for beach renourishment projects, and a variety of other topics. In the productive two-hour meeting, the participants were candid and each brought important insight to the table. Many offered actual examples of why their issues were important. 



Among the challenges articulated is the lag time in moving through a government process and communication among governments. "Certain actions or delays feed the public perception that government agencies don't talk to each other," said Port Everglades Director Phil Allen.
 


Bertha Henry, Broward County Administrator, added that "some federal regulations adversely impact local governments as well. We are often required to implement new regulations on behalf of the federal government, with no real guidance. This can be very confusing to the private or public sector and add to the myths that all governments are inefficient. More importantly, any new regulation costs money to implement. 


The trade agreements pending in Congress was another topic brought up by the group. Allen said: "Port Everglades is an 'export port' and the trade agreements, particularly with Colombia, are vital. Exports means U.S. jobs. The value of export cargo from Port Everglades is $11.1 billion supporting 55,000 U.S. jobs. If things stall, what gets left in limbo? U.S. jobs."