Kudos to Obama for Supporting Business

Throughout his term, President Obama has rarely been on the side of business. In fact, I once remarked that his administration is the most anti-business in my lifetime - a comment I still stand behind today. But when the president supports and implements pro-business policies, I'll be the first to acknowledge and applaud him. So here are some kudos:

First, the Obama administration said it would oppose the anti-piracy legislation that would hurt the Internet and innovation. Ahead of the recent Internet blackout by top Web companies to protest the Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the White House took a strong stand. Through a blog posting, the Administration said it would not support the PIPA and SOPA legislation as written. On the substance alone, this was not surprising, as I imagine everyone from the State Department to the Commerce Department said the legislation was bad for the Internet, national security, innovation, and the First Amendment.

But politically, it was courageous because it could cost the president some reelection dollars. The copyright lobby has been a top donor to the President, and several Hollywood leaders, most notably Motion Picture Association of America head Chris Dodd, have said they would be withholding their financial support if the Administration maintains its anti-SOPA/PIPA stance. Rarely is crony capitalism so blatantly exposed. But what's particularly odious is the sight of a former U.S. Senator, whose private industry job stemmed only from his Senate seat, candidly disclosing that he expects the President's support based solely on campaign contributions. Of course, what Senator Dodd missed was that the public outcry over the legislation was in part due to the sense that for years Hollywood had bought politicians who readily agreed to pass bad anti-consumer legislation.

It just so happened that the Supreme Court chose the day of the Internet blackout to release a decision upholding another Hollywood-driven law that grants Congress near complete authority to extend the copyright term whenever it wants. The Court's ruling upheld a law which hurt school bands and orchestras by taking "public domain" works and extending their copyrights. Although the law hurt students, school districts and did nothing for new creativity, Congress passed it simply because the content lobbyists wanted it. But with SOPA and PIPA, finally Congress said this can't just be about campaign contributions. And that's why the MPAA response to President Obama's decision was so offensive - you're bought and you should stay bought!

So kudos to Obama for standing up against those anti-innovation forces in Hollywood, and elsewhere, and making it clear that efforts to buy politicians and hinder the progress of talented entrepreneurs would not get the support of this administration.

The second big kudos concerns international tourism. Since September 11, we have discouraged foreign visitors to the U.S. out of unfounded fears that those who wish to visit America only want to do us harm. Nothing could be more reactionary or wrong. While world travel increased by 60 million travelers from 2000-2010, travel to the U.S. remained relatively flat. The U.S. Travel Association (USTA) estimates we could have had another 467,000 jobs annually if we had kept pace. In other words, we've only been hurting ourselves with our backward tourism and visa policies.

As Roger Dow, President and CEO of USTA, told a congressional committee last year, "The travel industry's $134.4 billion in exports contributed more than any other industry to America's $1.8 trillion worth of total goods and services exports." Which means our backwards policies have simply left money on the table. It makes no sense.

So it was good to see the president travel to Orlando last week to unveil his tourism initiative. Specifically, Obama signed an executive order to boost non-immigrant visa processing from China and Brazil by 40 percent and expand America's visa waiver program. The president also created a Task Force on Travel and Competitiveness that will look at inventive ways of increasing travel to the United States.

It's simple, common-sense steps like these that would do wonders for our ailing economy. Matched with the president's public opposition to anti-business policies like SOPA and PIPA, I'd say that the economy had a good week. It's perhaps not enough to salvage the wreckage of the administration's three years of anti-business measures, but it's never too late to start.