Don’t you just love the blame game antics by our politicians? I don’t like the conduct of any of them in this Continental Tire elephant hunt. Evidence indicates all were involved in the chase to land Continental. If they had been successful they would break their arms trying to take creditfor the catch.

Let’s be very clear about this. The entire episode was a terrible case of corporate greed and blackmail from the very beginning. We had experience with this company when they tried to blackmail us into keeping their corporate headquarters in Charlotte. They left and we should have used the “fool me once” excuse for dismissing them. North Carolina had no business even thinking about giving them 45 million dollars up front to build a plant that MIGHT create 1,300 jobs several years from now. And don’t forget there was another 55 million to follow. The taxpayers of this state would have paid $71,000 per job…and the record will show that seldom, if ever, does any company create the jobs they promised. And never forget they will pull up and leave when someone else waves more dollars in front of them. This is a fools game!

Enough. I don’t know which is worse, the corporate greed, the amount of the blackmail or the willingness of our politicians to play this ridiculous game.

If North Carolina has 100 million dollars to spend let’s incentivize our small businesses to create those jobs all across our state. They would be immediate, longer lasting and more beneficial to all our citizens.

We say good riddance to Continental.