A Crazy Girlfriend and the Political Environment

Before the female readers scream bloody murder (which in an ironic way would prove the point) this is not a slant against the female sex and as I was reminded by my staff, “Men are every bit as crazy as women.” Granted, but for today’s article the song “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood is low hanging fruit. Regardless of the war of the sexes, I heard an interesting comment from a well known press person this past week.

“Today’s politics is like a crazy girlfriend, at first it’s exciting but eventually you get tired of getting your car keyed.”

The fact is that Americans are just tired of the fussing.

As a business organization, we see the burden that our members have borne because of the government’s ineffectiveness. As a business organization, some things have become clear.

 1) We have to push back on Government regulation more effectively.

• The average project that requires fed permitting takes an average of 7 years to get approved. Yes, that’s terrible, but when we talk to local and regional businesses they will tell you it’s no cup of tea closer to home.

2) We have to find and fund business people to run for office.

• This is certainly true on the local and state level as well as the federal level. The Wyoming legislature has quite clearly not advanced Wyoming as a pro business state and we are consistently ranked 34th to 48th as a “best state to do business.” Recently, I watched a project we desperately needed that addressed housing for young professionals get shot down by the City Council. While we certainly have some elected officials that are business champions, we have others that either don’t understand the needs of business or simply don’t care.

3) We need to use our super power.

• The human super power is coalition building. You get enough people together armed with the facts and filled with conviction you can achieve almost anything.

• Before we go carving our name into the proverbial leather seats of elected officials, we need to pause and realize the “crazy” needs to stop. We need to do the work necessary to build this nation instead of walking past the discussion and hastily reaching for the Louisville slugger. Oh well- I needed new headlights anyway.