[Cerek]

The main purpose of tax breaks to small companies is to act as an extra incentive to get the business up and running. That should provide a few jobs and, hopefully, will provide more if the business succeeds. Tax breaks will help lower the operating cost and increase the profit margin, which should help the business be more successful (providing the owner is competent and the product/service provided is satisfactory to the customers).

I also agree we need to reverse the trade deficit and Obama seems to reflect the same attitude in his speech about seeing Chevy's and Fords being driven in other countries. One thing I DO know for a fact is that foreign auto manufacturers are being encouraged to open new plants over here. Volkswagon is building a large production plant near Chattanooga, TN. Even though that's about 100 miles from my home, there are still people here that will apply for jobs at the plant. There are also plants here that will be bidding for contracts to supply parts to the new plant.

Our county got hit VERY hard by NAAFTA back in the 90's. We had 3 major textile plants (Levi's, Lee and American Thread). All of these moved to other countries. The Levi's plant is now the National HQ for Snap-On Tools, but I don't think either of the other two plants have any new companies utilizing them yet.

Anyway, it does look like Obama (and the rest of the country) is trying to lure business and production plants back to the US. Those facilities provide hundreds of jobs to the local residents and their products will help improve our lagging economy.

I also agree with Obama's statement that there is no silver bullet that can magically fix the economy overnight. Instead, we have to start with smaller measures that will build upon each other as we go forward and look for long-term solutions rather than short-term quick fixes.