White House "Fiscal Cliff" Meeting

11/13/2012

Today and tomorrow, President Obama is meeting with union and
business leadership to discuss the “fiscal cliff” issue. Once again, Obama is
doing an unserious thing with a very serious fiscal crisis he and the country
are facing.

Expected at the meeting on Tuesday were four labor leaders -
Mary Kay Henry of the Service Employees International Union, Lee Saunders of
the public employees union AFSCME, Dennis Van Roekel of the National Education
Association and Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, the umbrella organization for
U.S. labor.

Also at the session on Tuesday would be leaders of civic and
politically progressive groups. They were John Podesta and Neera Tanden of the
Center for American Progress, Robert Greenstein of the think tank Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities, Laura Burton Capps of Common Purpose Project, Max
Richtman of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security, Justin Ruben of
MoveOn and Deepak Bhargava of Center for Community Change, liberals all.

Business executives invited to meet the president on
Wednesday were Mark Bertolini of Aetna Inc, Ursula Burns of Xerox Corp, Kenneth
Chenault of American Express Co, David Cote of Honeywell International Inc,
Michael Duke of Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric Co,
Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical Co, Robert McDonald of Procter & Gamble Co,
Alan Mulally of Ford Motor Co, Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo Inc, Ginni Rometty of
IBM, and John Watson of Chevron Corp.

There is monotony to the cast of characters the President has
invited to his chinwag.  One cannot find
a single person or organization in this august group who has built a business
or created a new job in the past four years.

Where are the small business owners and entrepreneurs who
have been the engines of economic and job growth in America? This meeting is
for show, not substance. Remember the jobs council? It is for cover and
endorsement of his preordained tax hikes. It is a collection of business people
who reject the notion of tax reform they do not need. With their battalions of
lawyers and tax accountants, they have a competitive advantage over small
businesses that have no such resources to combat the IRS. Between the
industrial labor union demands and big business search for lower costs, more
jobs have been moved out of the country than small business can create,
especially with the regulatory toxins spewing from the executive branch
agencies that essentially kill the economy and jobs. This meeting is more like
asking the fox for advice on a strategy to guard the hen house than counsel for
ways to fix the “fiscal cliff” over which we are about to tumble.

Look, the President won an election; he has much wind at his
back, and can do pretty much what he wants. Congressional Republicans would do
well to not become the Presidential whipping boys by the appearance of
obstructionism and allow him to own an economy which will surly tank with, tax
increases on anybody, let alone the small business owners, and failure to
arrest the liberal spending tendencies and no serious plans for entitlement
reform. 

Al Boese                                                          
                                                                                                                                 Lake
Bluff. IL