White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett would like to make one thing exceedingly clear: The Obama administration is not bad for business. No way. No how. Not one little bit. “We are not anti-business,” the president’s chief liaison to the business community stresses to me over the phone one afternoon in late July, an edge of frustration ruffling her usually calm-as-cream voice. “Our goal is to foster an environment where companies invest and innovate and grow and expand their employment base in a way that will be good for the country and good for business.”
Former CEO of the Habitat Company, a Chicago real-estate development and management firm, Jarrett is particularly unmoved by the oft-voiced business complaint that this White House lacks private-sector veterans. “I’ve been the head of a company,” she says. “I’ve sat on publicly held boards.” But managing a national economy is a vastly different proposition, she observes. Reminding me of the bleak economic conditions under which Obama assumed office, she briskly ticks through a number of dramatic steps “boldly and decisively” taken to stop the bleeding and start the healing. Naturally, she allows, there has been some tension surrounding the new “rules of the road”—a favorite Obamaland catchphrase—being put in place to prevent future meltdowns. But, “from day one,” Jarrett asserts, this White House has maintained an open-door policy with business. She points in particular to the private luncheons Obama hosts with small groups of executives and similar dinners presided over by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. “We have,” she says, “spent a great deal of time and energy reaching out broadly.”
None of this, however, seems to have satisfied the business community, which has spent the past few months locked in an increasingly public squabble with the administration. In June, the Business Roundtable (BRT)—an association of CEOs from some of America’s largest companies, and a group previously regarded as pro-Obama—joined its sister organization, the Business Council, in rolling out an exhaustive 54-page report on “government initiatives that will cause slower rather than faster growth.” (Taxes and regulation were, unsurprisingly, top concerns.) The next day, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, BRT chairman and frequent White House visitor, appeared before the Economic Club of Washington and groused that, “by reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.” In July, the Chamber of Commerce—whose relations with this White House have been rocky—sponsored a “Jobs for America” summit devoted to slamming administration policies. Other executives, meanwhile, stepped up to decry the president’s vilification of business, pointing to his tough talk about Wall Street and health insurers. Even targeted comments, like Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s pledge to “keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum” and Obama’s assertion that “I know whose ass to kick” over the oil spill, were widely received as assaults on the broader community. “All of business is getting tarred with the same brush,” laments Honeywell CEO David Cote, a repeat invitee to Obama’s closed-door chats.
And so the Obama administration finds itself in a vexing position. Corporate America—having helped to spike cap-and-trade and water down the financial regulation and health care bills—is running around loudly charging that the White House is out to get the private sector. At the same time, hard-won compromises on key policy goals have convinced some of Obama’s liberal base that he is a corporation-coddling sellout. Alas, the president’s efforts to communicate with the public about economic matters seem to satisfy almost no one: Alternately sounding like an outraged populist and a free-market cheerleader, his balancing act serves mostly to confuse people. He is bashed simultaneously as a market-hating socialist and as a bloodless elitist, uninterested in the suffering of regular Americans. This betwixt-and-between stance may be in keeping with Obama’s trademark brand of thoughtful, noncommittal pragmatism, but, when it comes to the economy, it seems to be winning him the worst of both worlds.
As some see it, this summer’s go-round between the White House and the business community all started with the president’s May 4 address to the Business Council. It shouldn’t have been a formal address at all, really. The Business Council is a collegial, collaborative bunch, a self-described “educational and deliberative forum” composed of CEOs from some of America’s most formidable corporations. Their gatherings tend to be high-level bull sessions—no staff allowed—at which captains of industry sit around swapping insights on policy, politics, and the frequently fraught interplay between business and government.
With all the economic drama of late, Obama wanted to connect with council chieftains at their annual gathering in Washington. But rather than stroll into the Park Hyatt ready to rub elbows and talk strategy, the president came with a teleprompter and a prepared speech that was more lecture than invitation to engage. He said his piece, took no questions, and decamped with impolitic alacrity—leaving behind a roomful of disgruntled chief executives still anxious about the White House’s policy aims and unaccustomed to such high-handed treatment. Far from feeling courted, or even understood, some members felt they’d been used as props.
The grumbling was still going strong when Treasury Secretary Geithner made his appearance later that day. He solicited questions, indulged in some back-and-forth, and attempted to soothe some dander, but to no avail. Nor were dispositions sunnier when Peter Orszag, then chief of the Office of Management and Budget, showed up at dinner that evening. The mealtime chatter, recalls one attendee, was “very feisty.”
At some point, sitting down with Seidenberg, Orszag suggested that the BRT and Business Council put their concerns down on paper. What followed was the combative joint report—and it was all downhill from there. As the financial reform bill rumbled toward passage, simmering doubts about the administration’s grasp of, and attitude toward, business erupted in a flurry of critical speeches, letters, op-eds, and media appearances. Obama officials, in turn, suggested business was being overly sensitive, unrealistic in its demands, and more than a little ungrateful for all that government had done to stave off an economic apocalypse. News reports outlined various industries’ plans to punish Democrats by flooding Republican campaign coffers for the upcoming midterms. By mid-July, the media was awash in hand-wringing about the animosity between the White House and corporate America. For a president grappling with an unemployment rate near 10 percent, this was not a welcome storyline.
The problem with Obama, and with many (if not most) Democrats and too many Republicans is not that they are anti-business, per se, but that they are pro "big business" (i.e., big campaign contributions) and "big government" (lots of power for the political class) but militantly anti-taxpayer. All the bailouts went to large banks (small ones just get absorbed), large investment firms (Goldman Sachs, AIG, etc., that should have been allowed to fail), and "big labor" (such as state and local governments with their overpaid, under-worked, often counter-productive unionized employees with obscene benefits and pensions, and GM and Chrysler), while a diminishing percentage of people, who pay the va ... view full comment
The problem with Obama, and with many (if not most) Democrats and too many Republicans is not that they are anti-business, per se, but that they are pro "big business" (i.e., big campaign contributions) and "big government" (lots of power for the political class) but militantly anti-taxpayer. All the bailouts went to large banks (small ones just get absorbed), large investment firms (Goldman Sachs, AIG, etc., that should have been allowed to fail), and "big labor" (such as state and local governments with their overpaid, under-worked, often counter-productive unionized employees with obscene benefits and pensions, and GM and Chrysler), while a diminishing percentage of people, who pay the vast majority of taxes in this country (such as the hard-working business owner), is left to pay the bills, now and forever.
Dale Ogden, Libertarian, 2010 Candidate for Governor of California; http://www.daleogden.org http://www.daleogden.net
Obama has wanted to please everyone-- and has consequently pleased fewer and fewer with weak compromise policies. In economics, which is a science in its infancy (like physics in 1510) you really can't split the difference between Hooverian and Keynesian theories. It's like trying to compromise berween flat earth and round earth or geocentric and heliocentric theories. You end up with an incomprehensible mess. Welcome to Obama stimulus, Obamacare, Obama financial reform, etc. Joe low info voter sees though the Obamamess better than most pundits.
Obama has wanted to please everyone-- and has consequently pleased fewer and fewer with weak compromise policies. In economics, which is a science in its infancy (like physics in 1510) you really can't split the difference between Hooverian and Keynesian theories. It's like trying to compromise berween flat earth and round earth or geocentric and heliocentric theories. You end up with an incomprehensible mess. Welcome to Obama stimulus, Obamacare, Obama financial reform, etc. Joe low info voter sees though the Obamamess better than most pundits.
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