Two weeks after a mid-term election in which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce helped thwart Barack Obama and the Democrats, the group’s CEO, Tom Donohue, gave a speech that read like a doubling down of sorts. “We cannot allow this nation to move from a government of the people to a government of the regulators,”he said. “Regulation is the vehicle by which some seek to control our economy, our businesses, and our lives.” Nor did Donohue leave any doubt about how he intended to prosecute this fight: “The Chamber will mount a vigorous defense and aggressive offense in support of the right to lobby, communicate with voters … and to do so without government harassment or undue restriction.” In other words, Donohue plans to spend gobs more money on lobbyists and ads to undermine Obama.
But, if you look at what Donohue had to say in a less scripted moment, it’s not clear that he and the Chamber feel quite as triumphal as they’d have you believe. Asked about Republicans’ mounting criticism of the Federal Reserve, Donohue sounded positively frustrated. “The Fed has over many, many, many years been particularly helpful to this government and to this country,” he lectured reporters. “We must maintain the independence of the Fed and be very, very careful not to louse that up on Capitol Hill.”
Oops! Having spent tens of millions of dollars defeating Democrats while explicitly touting the Tea Party movement, the Chamber is waking up to the fact that its brand new Congress may be a touch better in theory than in practice. Not only are many recently elected GOPers hostile to the Fed, they also oppose infrastructure spending, corporate subsidies, expanded free trade, and pretty much anything Wall Street favors—all top Chamber priorities.
Which is why the White House shouldn’t be in an especially conciliatory mood when dealing with the Chamber and its allies. Big business may talk a good game these days. But, in a world where the Tea Parties are about to get the keys to the Capitol, Corporate America needs adults like Barack Obama much more than he needs it.
There’s always been something slightly preposterous about the idea that Obama has been bad for business. This is, after all, an administration that bailed out GM and Chrysler and propped up Wall Street at tremendous political cost, then withdrew from these sectors faster than anyone thought possible. It resisted pressure to break up big banks, re-nominated a Republican Fed chairman, and has proposed a series of business-friendly tax changes. Oh, and it just presided over the best quarter of corporate profits on record.
Nonetheless, groups like the Chamber and the Business Roundtable have glommed onto two arguments over the last year. The more impressive-sounding is that Obama’s agenda has created investment-repelling and job-killing “uncertainty.” The uncertainty argument isn’t so much wrong as criminally misleading, as many others have pointed out. (You can read my own take here.) Yes, uncertainty has weighed on hiring and investment. But it’s overwhelmingly been economic uncertainty, not political: Businesses haven’t been spending because they’re unsure about future demand for their goods and services, not because of anything Washington has done.
Asked to elaborate on the uncertainty critique and corporate honchos usually kvetch about all the new regulations Obama has saddled them with. And it’s true that some of Obama’s regulatory changes—like financial reform—would crimp profits. But that’s very different from creating uncertainty. In fact, the whole point is to replace the recent boom and bust cycle (highly uncertain) with slower, more stable growth—the true measure of prosperity. Apparently the only place this tradeoff is unappreciated is in the corporate executive suite.
Well, that and a handful of pundit precincts. Expounding on the Obama-is-bad-for-business meme in The Washington Post this summer, Amity Shlaes, the minister of information for the country-club-industrial-complex, reminded us how Lamott Du Pont (of those Du Ponts) once observed that the New Deal was creating a “fog of uncertainty” and crippling business. Shlaes somehow interprets this as a lesson to overzealous regulators. In fact, it’s a lesson in the dangers of spouting off nonsensically when your family papers are destined for an archive. As it happens, the New Deal regulatory regime paved the way for one of the most prosperous generations in human history.
That leaves the second, far vaguer argument, the gist of which is that Obama and his senior aides simply don’t appreciate business. As Time’s Fareed Zakaria summarized the critique after canvassing a handful of CEOs: “[T]hey pointed to the fact that Obama … has almost no private-sector experience, that he’s made clear he thinks government and nonprofit work are superior to the private sector.” Even if true, is there any way this could possibly matter independently of his policies (which are hardly anti-business)?
The Chamber only wants to keep all of us scared and un/underemployed long enough that we'll be content to settle work for minimum wage (or less) with no benefits. That way, they don't have to compete for quality labor, there's no threat of labor organizing into unions, they keep all their tax breaks and Obama still gets the blame for everything going to hell in a handbasket. To repeat a misappropriated quote from Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake".
I think it's brilliant. Sinister and wrong, but brilliant nonetheless.
The Chamber only wants to keep all of us scared and un/underemployed long enough that we'll be content to settle work for minimum wage (or less) with no benefits. That way, they don't have to compete for quality labor, there's no threat of labor organizing into unions, they keep all their tax breaks and Obama still gets the blame for everything going to hell in a handbasket. To repeat a misappropriated quote from Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake".
I think it's brilliant. Sinister and wrong, but brilliant nonetheless.
First Name
Last Name
Address 1
City
State
Zip
