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At Jobs Summit, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Makes Its Case Against Obama Policies
"For the first time in my 40 years of observation, I truly think our free enterprise system is at risk," said Tom Bell, chairman of the Chamber's board of directors, opening the summit. "If you hear the conversations in Washington and read the popular press, everyone seems to see earning profit and creating wealth not as the heart and soul of our economy, but as a nefarious activity that works to the detriment of our society."
As members of Congress, administration staffers and students gathered at the Chamber's headquarters, the White House was waging a counteroffensive. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett released an open letter responding to the Chamber's attacks on administration policies.
"The stakes are far too high for us to be working against one another," Emanuel and Jarrett wrote. "We were surprised and disappointed at the rhetoric we have heard from the business community -- rhetoric that fails to acknowledge the steps this administration has taken every single day to meet our shared objectives."Meanwhile, President Obama was holding a private meeting with billionaire Warren Buffet to discuss the administration's attempts to spur the U.S. economy into recovery and reduce unemployment. The administration also released a report estimating that its $826 billion stimulus bill, which the Chamber supported, had created between 2.5 and 3.6 million jobs.
But the Chamber argued that the country needs 20 million new jobs over the next decade, and painted that as a bleak prospect under the Obama administration. Chamber officials decried Congress' health care overhaul, new regulation of Wall Street, and the cap-and-trade bill that the House passed in June 2009.
"All of this has injected tremendous uncertainty into our economy," Thomas Donohue, the Chamber's CEO, said in his keynote address. "Uncertainty is the enemy of investment, growth and jobs. Banks, investors, and companies ... are worried. They don't know what is going to hit them next."
Donohue said large corporations are sitting on capital, afraid to hire because they are unsure about how much new regulations will cost them, though he repeatedly refused to characterize the president as anti-business.
"My job is not to run around and agree with him, and his job is not to run around and agree with me," Donohue told the Financial Times. "Our job is to advance what we think is the best thing for the American business community and for America and to do it in a way that is constructive and polite."
But speaker after speaker at Wednesday's event blamed what they see as the country's bleak economic future on Obama and the Democratic Congress. Donohue slammed the "suffocating regulations" that have come out of Congress in the past 18 months, and Bell said the president is leading the United States on a path to "becoming the next Greece."
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who appeared on a panel at the summit, said she and her Democratic colleagues make "no apologies" for increasing government spending during extraordinary economic times. "There's nothing usual about this," she said. Landrieu recommended that Congress put "all options on the table" for dealing with the national debt, and rebuked Republicans for excluding tax increases and cuts in defense spending from the discussion.
Heather Bousey, an economist at the Center for American Progress, said that the Chamber is getting ahead of itself by worrying about the deficit before the unemployment problem has been solved. "You don't start talking to somebody about their weight problem when they're suffering from a heart attack right now," Bousey said. "We'll need to talk about it down the road, for sure, but we have to get the unemployment rate down right now. That's your first and profoundly fundamental problem."
Bousey argued that benefits for the unemployed receive the "biggest bang for the government's buck" because small business owners are more worried about a lack of customers than they are about federal regulation. "The long-term unemployed have gone through their savings, and they have no money to spend," Bouey said. "That's the one thing the government can do that none of us can do, and small businesses can't do, even if their taxes and regulation are at zero."
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who also appeared on the Chamber's panel and has urged his colleagues to stop extending emergency unemployment benefits, said the administration and congressional Democrats are turning the United States into a "European welfare state model" by expanding health care coverage and assisting the unemployed. Landrieu argued that, on the contrary, the president made an "honest effort" to contain "runaway, unsustainable costs" in American health care by championing aggressive reform.
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The Chamber of Commerce is dead set AGAINST the American work force, which is the middle class American.
In Ohio a few years ago they tried very hard to completly gut the workers Comp laws.
They are in favor of EXPORTING American jobs through "free trade?" instead of FAIR TRADE.
As a Chamber Member, I am distressed by the political stance that the Leaders of the Chamber have taken. I continue to pay my dues to my local Chamber because we have a good working arrangement and it is good for our business; but I have made clear that I don't agree with the use of my dues to express political views with which I don't agree. And I believe are not representative of a lot of Chamber members. I was never given an opportunity to vote or express my opinion on the stance of the Chamber.
July 19 2010 at 9:54 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down ReplyIt's ironic that the Chamber of Commerce talks about jobs, but the jobs they support are low wage jobs for illegal aliens and importing foreign workers. They are not for the middle class workers in America which is what has kept this country going. We see the results right now when the middle class are unemployed or under-employed. The Chamber of Commerce should be called a globalist organization because they are not interested in the best interests of America and it's citizens.
July 19 2010 at 1:07 PM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down ReplyThe only thng that makes business happy is tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, $1 per hour labor (no benifits) kill social security and medicare and more middle east wars.
July 18 2010 at 11:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhat big business's hire $1 per hour labor? Please enlighten me. I worked for big business for many years and had all the perks one could ask for. Health Insurance, great salary, a raise every year, bonus's, car, educational opportunities, vacations, all of it. I don't know who your talking about but, I'd like to know.
July 18 2010 at 5:44 PM Report abuse Permalink +4 rate up rate down ReplyHow many jobs do "Big Business" have to send over seas, in the name of "Free Enterprise", before we stop kidding our selves. The most important thing is the bottom line, how much profit will be made. The owners of companies and the stock holder are looking for "the money" not giving American Citizens jobs and wages.
They sleep well at night because it "The American Way";-)!
Judy what about the OUTSOURCING IN THE U.S.A. by Illegals?
July 18 2010 at 11:58 AM Report abuse Permalink +5 rate up rate down ReplyNo one seems to get it! Obama did this...Bush did that....FOOLS! It's like arguing who is better...the Bloods or the Crips....guess what? They are all bought and paid for, by special interests. The so called Health Care reform, Senate version, was written by the insurance industry! Max Baucaus' two senior aids were ex-insurance lackeys and are part of the "revolving door" system that plagues the whole Congress. Think about it.....what a GREAT biz model....get the Government to force everyone to buy your product...or else the IRS will hunt you down! The Insurance industry makes a fake move...to throw people off...by allowing the corrupt Congress to impose a "pre-exisiting" condition. A small price to pay for 30 + million mandatory purchasers and no competition from a public provider! There is only one solution....VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT....regardless of Party. WAKE UP!
July 16 2010 at 9:30 AM Report abuse Permalink +9 rate up rate down ReplyPeople, along with the probablility of a VAT (Value Added Tax) being adopted in America, which will tax everyone based on consumption, I suggest you Google "expiring Bush tax cuts" and see how you will be affected. The Libs/Dems would like you to believe they were only for the wealthy, but if you look it up, you will realize you are going to be hit every which way but softly, come 2011.
July 15 2010 at 6:19 PM Report abuse Permalink +9 rate up rate down Replyettu most who paid less taxes after bushes tax cut spent that money and more on the increased cost of gas the higher state and local taxes and will pay evan more on the interest on the debt Bush ran up in part due to his tax cuts Which by the way were are all those jobs the tax cuts werte supposed to create where are they So what the tax cut really did was cost all but the wealthy evan more of their hard earned money in higher gass prices higher state and locall taxes and eventualy less goverment servicess or a huge tax increase
July 15 2010 at 11:24 PM Report abuse Permalink -2 rate up rate down ReplyChamber Of Commerce's only purpose is to have the "Small Business Men" keep all the money they think they created and not pay those who work for them ; living wages, health care, safe working environment and blaming taxes for all their ills.
Why is it that our comsumer prices are rising while for about four years nobody gets a raise? Because if they gave raises the BMW's ,Boat, summer house etc. would be a lose too much to bare. Oh No Unions Too they drive the economy down.
The "GREAT ONES" in Washington, today are claiming unemployment has dropped for the week of July 12. Yeah, right! It's because they have cut off unemployment benefits to the long time unemployed, and those people are not counted because we are worthless and not looking for work what a crock. I have been looking since Dec. of 08. I live in Vegas our unemployment is now the highest in the country at 14%. So all of them only care about themselves, every one of them. Their all rich and don't have to worry about a damn thing! They only bail out large companies and big banks. They don't care if the people who put them in their great houses die!
July 15 2010 at 3:51 PM Report abuse Permalink +16 rate up rate down ReplyGood comment. What they don't realize is that almost everything that is being said and done right now is to divide us and cause hatred among us. We should rise above it and see what is happening before our eyes. Look and learn for yourselves what is changing in this country. Don't take anyone's word for it. But do the work and learn for yourselves before it's too late.
July 15 2010 at 4:22 PM Report abuse Permalink +15 rate up rate down ReplyI am just amazed at how partisan you all are.
Don't you get it?
We are being HAD by BOTH donkeys and elephants.
They BOTH push the globalist agenda.
How can we get out of the Recession with our manufacturing base overseas?
Wake up and smell the feces.
They wamt you fighting with each other while they steal you blind.
That being said, I do not agree at all with Obama's "fix"
Even his own deficit commissioner (appointed by BO HIMSELF) admits that we are headed for a "predictable disaster" with the wild spending. He calls the deficit
a "cancer" that will "destroy us from within".
How much more do you need to believe this man?
Will it take the the actual COLLAPSE to convince you??!!
I am getting heavy into GOLD because I don't need the actual collapse to convice me.
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