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Chamber starts job push of its own
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is unleashing a lobbying push on jobs with a detailed letter on six separate issues to be sent to the president and lawmakers next week.
The Chamber’s plan to create jobs — which includes passing three pending free-trade agreements, boosting investments in infrastructure, increasing domestic energy investment, rolling back regulations, targeted tax relief and enhancing tourism — was rolled out just days before President Obama is expected to unveil new initiatives aimed at giving a jolt to the sluggish job market.
At a Wednesday news conference, Tom Donohue, the Chamber’s chief executive, acknowledged that there was little in the way of fresh ideas in the new plan.
But, he added, there was a good explanation for that.
“The reason you’re hearing them again is because they haven’t done a damn thing about it,” Donohue said, speaking about government leaders.
“There’s no magic wand to wave here. If you’re looking for a miracle, go to church,” he added. “If you’re looking for practical ideas that can start the process of recovering the millions of jobs we’ve lost since 2007, then start these things.”
Donohue also said that the Chamber, which represents some 3 million businesses, would pull out all the stops to lobby the White House and Congress on their ideas. And he signaled that the plan was formulated to deal with the more austere spending atmosphere currently on display in Washington.
As it stands, the Chamber is far from the only group pushing to have its voice heard in the jobs debate. Liberal groups have already been urging the release of a bolder package, and not one tailored to appeal to Republicans.
For his part, the president has said the plan will include measures aimed at boosting the construction sector. Obama and aides have also talked up targeted tax proposals like extending the current payroll tax holiday and offering tax credits for companies that create jobs.
On Wednesday, Donohue said the president should add to his list an executive order that would direct federal agencies not to issue discretionary rules until the economy improves.
The White House has said that it is working to minimize regulatory burdens, releasing a plan last week to scale back many federal rules.
But Donohue and the Chamber’s Randy Johnson signaled that the administration needed to do more to roll back the regulations they said were not only weighing businesses down but aimed at helping political allies.
“It’s time for the nation to take a breath,” Donohue said. “We’ve got to be very careful when we look at what regulations we’re now going to put in place.”
The Chamber plan also calls for a corporate tax holiday that would allow multinationals to bring offshore profits to the U.S. at a vastly reduced tax rate, an idea that companies including Cisco, Oracle and Apple are lobbying hard to get implemented.
Donohue also said that he thought authorities could better balance national-security interests and the need to promote tourism, adding that returning tourism to 2000 levels could support 1.3 million jobs.
He sounded confident that the trade pacts with South Korea, Panama and Colombia — as well as an assistance program for displaced workers at the center of the current holdup of those deals — would move through Congress fairly quickly.
But while Chamber officials were confident their plan could create jobs, they were not quite as optimistic about the prospects for economic growth.
Martin Regalia, the group’s chief economist, said that he expected the sluggish economic growth in the second quarter, most recently calculated at 1 percent, would inch up to around 2 percent.
But that would still not be enough growth, Regalia said, to get the job market back to where it needed to be.
“If you focus on creating jobs and not focus on creating growth, you’re not going to be successful,” Regalia said. “It just doesn’t work.”
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