Nation's top executives oppose Senate reform billl

Despite presidential courting, a group representing the nation's top executives expressed disappointment in the version of financial regulatory reform legislation passed in the Senate on Thursday night. 

Business Roundtable members, who represent $6 trillion in annual revenues and 12 million employees, have advocated for an overhaul of financial regulations but said Friday they "are extremely disappointed" about the bill that "raises more questions and uncertainty than workable solutions."

"It has no cost-benefit analysis and no examination of its impact on the more than 12,000 non-financial publicly traded companies," said John Castellani, president and CEO of the Business Roundtable in a release. "The potential negative impact to Main Street is alarming."

President Barack Obama met with members of the group in March about his economic policies and his push for financial reform. 

The nearly 40-year-old association of chief executive officers, argued that the bill will reduce the competitiveness of American businesses, specifically the proxy access provision that could impede companies from adding jobs in the United States. 

"Far from encouraging long-term growth, proxy access will exacerbate the near-sightedness that has come to be seen as one of the causes of the financial crisis," the release said. 

In a recent column in the Huffington Post, Castellani said a good reform bill will fix what went wrong while protecting the ability of American companies to hire more workers and grow the economy. The wrong reform would encourage the pursuit of short-term gains over long-term growth, "the same flawed mindset that led to this crisis in the first place."