Arkansas Economy

Arkansas is a blessed place, and should be one of the most prosperous states in the union.  We have navigable waters in the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. We have rail and major interstate highway routes, and are the headquarters for major trucking lines.  We have plentiful waters for agriculture, recreation, industry, transportation, and drinking. We have natural resources in timber, recreational land, agricultural land, and minerals.  We have the headquarters for the world's largest retailer. We should be the envy of 49 other states.
Unfortunately, we also have a very high tax burden.  The highest of any southern state. It makes it difficult to attract the businesses and industries we need to truly prosper. Instead of changing tax policy to attract businesses, the legislature attempts to play favorites for individual businesses based largely on their level of political support. A glaring example of this is the Big River steel deal, where the Koch brothers supported many politicians that turned around and paid them back by giving tax breaks to their steel company at the expense of Nucor steel. The legislators pat themselves on the back about bringing in new industry while failing to note that any new jobs created will merely be replacing the jobs lost at Nucor that was already here.  We should not be picking individual companies to show favoritism. We should be giving tax breaks to everyone, so we can attract companies like Big River without eliminating established companies like Nucor.
We need to establish a business friendly environment so we can bring manufacturing back to the US instead of sending those jobs overseas.  Most of the resources and infrastructure required is already here. All we need to do is fix the policy problems and we could become a very prosperous state.