Many American manufacturers are at their wit's end. For the past two years, the Obama administration has seemingly been waging a war on business - toughening environmental standards, exerting vast control over the health care, financial and energy sectors and expanding regulatory enforcement with little concern about the negative effects on business. Under siege by rogue government agencies, private industry is sitting on more than $2 trillion in investment capital, waiting out the regulatory over-reach and business climate uncertainty - a large reason why unemployment has hovered around or above 9 percent for more than two years. And all the president can do is demonize and intimidate so-called "fat cat" CEOs.

The proverbial last straw came with the president's proposed repeal of the "last-in, first-out" method of inventory accounting. LIFO, used by companies for almost 70 years, allows manufacturers to take into account the cost of replacing inventory, which results in a more accurate measure of the amount of income that can be taxed. Repealing LIFO would be a huge financial hit on business and manufacturers at a time when they are being asked by the president to lead the economy out of the doldrums.

When President Obama signed the Manufacturing Enhancement Act of 2010 he said the goal was to "make it cheaper and easier for American manufacturers and American workers to do what they do best: build great products and sell them around the world." How will a massive LIFO tax increase make it "cheaper and easier" for manufacturers to even stay in business, much less be competitive?

If his lips are moving...

With this president, the rhetoric rarely matches the reality. I've learned to watch what he does, not what he says. He touted manufacturing as a key to America's economic success during a recent campaign trip to Iowa, saying "innovation and adaptation will help the manufacturing sector and the entire U.S. economy rebound." If that is so, why is his National Labor Relations Board suing Boeing for creating jobs in South Carolina (a right-to-work state) to manufacture their innovative Dreamliner aircraft, many of which will be exported? I agree with the president that we need to encourage more exports from the U.S. because exports help with employment in this country and also help with our staggering balance of trade deficit. The NLRB attack on Boeing is an audacious attempt to impose wage controls by dictating where and how a company can conduct business. If the NLRB gets its way, 1,000 S.C. workers will be forced into the unemployment lines.

The president is also attempting to influence the use of private aircraft. He mentioned "CEOs and their corporate jets" on at least six occasions in a recent speech as an example of a group that should be paying more in taxes. But the corporate jet tax break that he wants to eliminate was authorized by his own stimulus package in 2009. Back then, the president championed his proposal to accelerate depreciation schedules "to allow businesses and investors to deduct immediately the full cost of most investments that will help businesses expand and hire."

But in his recent press conference, Mr. Obama taunted Republicans, saying "You go talk to your constituents and ask them, are they willing to compromise their kids' safety so that some corporate jet owner continues to get a tax break?" A tax break that, by the way, every Republican House member and all but three Republican senators voted against. Amid this sluggish economy, what would motivate the president to attack an American industry that employs 1.2 million people and generates $150 billion in revenues each year? Most companies relying on a business airplane are small and mid-size firms flying into towns with little or no commercial airline service - not "fat cat" Wall Street types. Does he even understand the industry he is disparaging?

Regulatory overreach

However, the biggest threat to free enterprise is coming out of the regulatory agencies. Since the Democrats took a "shellacking" in the 2010 elections, the administration is attempting to accomplish via bureaucrats and regulations what it can no longer do through legislation. "What I have done," the president said at a June 29 press conference, "is I've said to each agency, don't just look at current regulations or don't just look at future regulations, regulations that we're proposing, let's go backwards and look at regulations that are already on the books, and if they don't make sense, let's get rid of them." I guess the EPA didn't get the memo. Not only is the agency not getting rid of any old rules, it is advancing 29 major new rules and 173 others with little or no regard for their compounding costs and implications.

"We are inventors, we are makers, and we are doers," Mr. Obama recently told a crowd at Carnegie Mellon University. "If we want a robust growing economy, we need a robust manufacturing sector." Unleashing an army of government overseers to determine the precise conditions under which businesses can operate has led us to where we are today. But don't take my word for it. Just ask the 13.9 million Americans who are currently unemployed how that's working out.