Economy Alarm: Business Leaders Warn: Obama’s Policies Stifle Economic Growth, Job Creation

Obama Claims the Stimulus ‘Saved Or Created’ up to 2 Million Jobs Last Year:

“The Obama administration, offering evidence that its much-maligned efforts to spur economic recovery have begun to take hold, said Tuesday that the $787-billion stimulus program saved or created 1.5 million to 2 million jobs last year… [Chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors Christina Romer] expressed confidence that the package of tax cuts and government spending — the largest of its kind in U.S. history — ultimately would fulfill President Obama’s promise of boosting employment by 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year.” (Don Lee and Jim Tankersley, “White House credits stimulus,” Los Angeles Times, 1/13/2010)

Speaker Pelosi Asserted the Stimulus Was on Track to Save or Create 3.5 Million Jobs By the End of 2010:

“The almost year-old stimulus bill’s progress is ‘on track,’ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asserted Wednesday… ‘When we passed the Recovery Act nearly one year ago, we pledged to create and save 3.5 million jobs over two years,’ Pelosi said in a statement. ‘This analysis shows that we are on track so far – with only half the money committed.’… Pelosi said further spending out of the stimulus act would mean more of an economic boost to the U.S.” (Michael O’Brien: “Stimulus Bill’s Progress ‘On Track,’” The Hill, 1/12/2010)

Credibility Crash: Business Leaders Accuse President of Creating an ‘Increasingly Hostile Environment for Investment and Job Creation”:

The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama’s closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.”

Ivan G. Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said that Democrats in Washington are pursuing tax increases, policy changes and regulatory actions that together threaten to dampen economic growth and “harm our ability . . . to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S.”

“In our judgment, we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore,” Seidenberg said in a lunchtime speech to the Economic Club of Washington. “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.”

Seidenberg’s remarks reflect corporate America’s growing discontent with Obama. The president has assiduously courted the nation’s top executives since taking office last year, seeking their counsel on economic policy in the wake of the recession and issuing dozens of invitations to the White House. In return, the Roundtable has generally supported the president’s policies; it was the only major business group to back Obama’s successful push for an overhaul of the health-care system.

In recent months, however, that relationship has begun to fray. First, Democrats included a provision in the health-care bill — over the Roundtable’s objection — that reduced corporate subsidies for drug coverage to retirees, a move that could cost big companies millions of dollars. Then the EPA unveiled rules to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions even without climate-change legislation, creating uncertainty about the future cost of energy.

The final straw, said Roundtable president John Castellani, was the introduction of two pieces of legislation, now pending in Congress, that the group views as particularly bad for business. One, a provision of the administration’s financial regulation overhaul, would make it easier for shareholders to nominate corporate board members. The other would raise taxes on multinational corporations. The rhetoric accompanying the tax proposals has been particularly harsh, Castellani said, with Democrats vowing to campaign in this fall’s midterm elections on a platform of punishing companies that move jobs overseas.

“We had been working very closely with them,” Castellani said, but things kept popping up that were “not just an irritant but a distraction” to promoting economic growth. (Lori Montgomery, “Business leaders say Obama’s economic policies stifle growth,” Washington Times, 6/23/2010)

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