Charlie Daniels Column: Obama Should Look to the States

The toll that government has taken on industry in this country is nothing less than insane.

The unwieldy and unnecessary regulations, the threats of exorbitant taxes and - most of all - the uncertainty of what else this out of control administration will impose, should it be reelected, has chased industry out of the nation and put on hold the hiring, construction, replacement orders and startups of new companies it takes to make this economy thrive.

The federal government could learn a valuable lesson from some of the more aggressive states who go out after and procure manufacturers who have seen their bottom line drastically reduced by operating in profligate, cash hungry states.

When a business friendly state pursues a corporation they offer tax breaks, incentives, they build new roads to help the business get their products to market more efficiently, they promise a pool of capable labor and breaks on land prices and utility costs, or at least that's what the successful ones do.

Of course unsuccessful ones just don't get it and continue to raise taxes and impose regulations until companies have had enough and move away, leaving jobless people and a hole in an already hurting tax base. Tennessee has been the recipient of quite a lot of the inadvertent largesse of these high tax states.

In the days preceding the Civil War the southern states were always largely dependent on the production of agricultural products for the lion’s share of its economy. Cotton, tobacco, peanuts, lumber and wood products all went into the makeup of an agrarian Southland where manufacturing was minimal.

The northern states were the industrial area of America and ruled the commercial world with the manufacturing of superior products sold domestically and to a world where products from America set the standard for quality.

A reduction of that quality and the demands of out of control trade unions have given over a large part of the domestic market to foreign manufacturers and goods made in the sweat shops of China and third world countries.

Our technical troubleshooting is even done off shore and the promised mutual benefit of the North American Free Trade Agreement has turned into a one-way street with products manufactured just over the border in Mexico and hauled into the United States in Mexican trucks.

The Obama administration created the most hostile business climate I've ever seen.

His refusal to allow the Keystone Pipeline and the 20,000 jobs it would create, his reticence to allow new drilling in the Gulf, his continued and unprecedented spending and surrounding himself with advisors who have had no business experience and his continual movement toward socialism has weakened America and if the course is not reversed, will bring it to its knees.

I can't help but wonder how anybody in this nation could be so dense as not to recognize the signs of disaster by now and how long they'll put up with politicians who think their time in office and political capital is best spent on reducing the size of soft drinks, an attorney general who sues states for exercising their constitutional rights and a president who thinks you get out of debt by going deeper in debt.

Bring out the smelling salts.