The Homa Files

This is a big deal.

The Business Roundtable – the CEO “club” – has stopped playing nice-nice with the President and gone public with a 54 page listing of specifics on how the Obama administration is stifling business growth and employment prospects.

• See the letter to Peter Orzag detailing the Roundtable’s “Policy Burdens Inhibiting Growth”
  http://businessroundtable.org/sites/default/files/2010.06.21%20Letter%20to%20OMB%20Director%20Orszag%20from%20BRT%20and%20BC%20with%20Attachments.pdf

This is important for 2 reasons:

1) The policy concerns are what’s keeping CEOs from hiring.  It’s why unemployent levels will stay around 10% for the foreseeable future.

2) The letter and speech represent a new boldness on the part of the CEOs

I’ve heard directly from a Roundtable member that that the group had been silent on their concerns because, initially, they expected Obama to “move to the middle” and wanted to give him some time. Then, when they saw how vindictive and punishing the administration was towards certain industries and specific companies, they were afraid to speak out.  Now, they figure “what the hell”.

It’s too bad that the McChrystal situation hogged the air the past couple of days … that pushed these public grievances off the front pages.

* * * * *

Excerpted from WSJ : Business Leader Slams ‘Hostile’ Policies on Jobs, June 23, 2010

Where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the other big business group in the capital, has been openly confrontational with the administration, the Business Roundtable — whose member companies pay 60% of U.S. corporate taxes and employ 12 million people — has until now been reluctant to criticize its policies in public. That has changed.

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, current head of one of the nation’s most influential business groups, slammed the Obama administration for decisions he said “create an increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.” He urged the administration to “focus on the big goal,” meaning job growth, “and stop trying to micromanage industries.  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 … the government needs to be removing itself from the private sector.”

The comments mark one of the sharpest breaks between top executives and the Obama White House. Mr. Seidenberg used  his speech at Washington’s Economic Club to unleash a list of policy grievances over taxes, trade and financial regulation.

• Increased taxes on foreign earnings
• Stalled free-trade agreements
• Shareholder rights to nominate directors
• End to secret ballots in union elections
• Expanded damages for pay discriminationEPA regulation of greenhouse gases 

White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said businesses would be helped by the administration’s policies, including its overhaul of the health-care system and promotion of clean energy. “The president has consistently pursued policies designed to create a better climate for American businesses in order to foster job creation, innovation and economic growth,” she said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322931249166908.html?KEYWORDS=business+roundtable

This entry was posted on June 24, 2010 at 6:59 am and is filed under Economics, Obama Administration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.