Manufacturers see gov’t war on free enterprise

Apr 20, 2010 | 12:20 PM | Corinna Petry

The government has been conducting "a war on free enterprise," according to Bill Jones, vice chairman of O'Neal Industries Inc. and chairman of the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI).

This war is being conducted by the Obama administration, Congress and federal agencies, he said on Monday during MSCI's town hall meeting in Oak Brook, Ill., regarding the plight of manufacturing. Their weapons include "damaging legislation on heath-care reform, labor, energy and taxation," with the regulatory agencies—the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Labor Relations Board and Occupational Safety and Health Administration—also placing onerous mandates on business.

Jones agrees there's a need for health-care reform and a national energy policy, but disagrees with the bills that have been passed or drafted because "they are going to increase costs. The energy bill (the latest draft has not yet come out of a bipartisan group of senators) will be detrimental to domestic sources of coal, oil and natural gas, making it more expensive to manufacture," he said.....