While President Barack Obama urges business leaders to improve the economy by getting in the game, prominent business leaders have started suggesting that, conversely, perhaps the president should get out of the game.
During a Feb. 7 meeting at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the president emphasized his belief that businesses have a responsibility to America, saying that now is the time to invest.
American companies have nearly $2 trillion sitting on their balance sheets, Obama said. And I know that many of you have told me that youre waiting for demand to rise before you get off the sidelines and expand, and that with millions of Americans out of work, demand has risen more slowly than any of us would like.
Still, he said, if businesses would begin investing in the economy, those investments would pay off as the economy rebounds, more Americans would be hired and more demand would be created, building what he called a virtuous circle.
More recently, on Monday the president met with business and nonprofit groups to try to raise millions to improve the nations work force, USA Today reports.
While the president is encouraging businesses to expand and get more involved, businessmen warn that his policies and approaches are actually harming their opportunities to grow and employ more Americans.
In a blunt assessment of the U.S. economic situation, Steve Wynn, the CEO of casino company Wynn Resorts, said Monday that political wrangling and a total lack of leadership from the president is responsible for keeping economic growth at bay.
This administration is the greatest wet blanket to business and progress and job creation in my lifetime, Wynn said in a Q&A session. And until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, its not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the president.
Business Insider reports that Wynn, a Democratic businessman who supports Harry Reid, also went on to say that the business community ��� Republican and Democrat ��� will sit on their thumbs until Obama is no longer president.
The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that dont invest, they're holding too much money, Wynn continued. Everybodys afraid of the government and theres no need soft peddling it. Its the truth. My customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration.
In a Wednesday interview with Investors Business Daily, Bernie Marcus, who co-founded Home Depot in 1978, said his company would never have succeeded in todays business environment.
Having built a small business into a big one, I can tell you that today the impediments that the government imposes are impossible to deal with, Marcus said. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. And I mean every day. Its becoming stifling.
Marcus told reporter John Merline that even if he could sit down with Obama and talk to him about job creation, it wouldnt be a worthwhile exercise.
Im not sure Obama would understand anything that Id say, because hes never really worked a day outside the political or legal area, Marcus said. As Washington piles on regulations and mandates, the impact is tremendous. I dont think hes a bad guy. I just think he has no knowledge of this.
Even Warren Buffet, who endorsed Obama during his first presidential run, told CNBC that while the wealthy have the responsibility to pay more toward improving the economy, he doesnt see why Obama's focus is on corporate jets when the tax break for them was passed by Congress as a measure to spur business growth. Unions have also spoken out against eliminating the tax break.
Although the more recent statements from businessmen may be louder and more blunt than in the past, Obama has been criticized for being anti-business throughout much of his presidency.
Fred Barnes, the executive editor at the Weekly Standard, said in 2009 the president could be considered anti-business because of his political appointments, his policies, his decisions and his own words in regards to propping up General Motors, intervening in banks and controlling executive compensation, among other things.
Anti-business may be too crude a label, Barnes writes. But this we can conclude: Obama doesnt trust free markets, he prefers government over business, he thinks Americans are too concerned about money, and he has a dark view of profits. A follower of Adam Smith, hes not.
In a 2010 U.S. News and World Report article, Mortimer Zuckerman called Obamas policies an economic Katrina, saying the administrations predilection to blame business for economic difficulties while ignoring the role of Congress in the housing collapse is unnecessary and provocative, and it also undermines the confidence of the business community in terms of investing.
Small-business owners do not trust the economic policies in place or proposed, Zuckerman quoted the head of the National Federation of Independent Business William Dunkelberg as saying. The U.S. economy faces hurricane force headwinds, and the government is at the center of the storm, making an economic recovery very difficult.
More recently, at a June 16 meeting with manufacturing executives, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley was faced down by businesspeople who criticized the administration for new environmental regulations and flailing free-trade deals.
The Washington Post reports that Daley, who is a former banker, said the difficulties came in the form of bureaucratic stuff thats hard to defend.
Sometimes you cant defend the indefensible, he said.
On July 15, David Gregory of NBCs Meet the Press appeared on Politicos Turn the Table Sunday preview show and said that uncertainty is harming the economy.
The president wants the private sector to drive economic recovery and to get people back to work, but if you talk to business leaders its the uncertainty about the impact of healthcare, its the uncertainty about the impact of financial reform, you know, whether the government can make a real decision about the debt picture, Gregory said. Theyre holding back because of how uncertain they are.
Forbes Dinesh DSouza wrote in September 2010 that Obamas attitude toward business stems from his fathers anti-colonial ideology, and that Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction.
He adopted his fathers position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder, DSouza writes. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neo-colonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society.
With the misery index ��� an unofficial measurement totaling the inflation and unemployment rates ��� standing 62 percent higher than when Obama first took office, Obamas former Wall Street donors are putting their money behind GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney instead. Bloomberg reports that while employees of Goldman Sachs Groups gave Obama $994,795 four years ago, in the last three months theyve donated $238,250 to Romney and $10,113 to Obama.
Investors Business Daily calls Wynns rant one among many, citing criticism from 3Ms George Buckly, Boeings Jim McNerney, Intels Paul Otellini and even GEs Jeffrey Immelt, an Obama supporter and a member of the Presidents Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.