SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
business roundtable
King Trump and the Greedy Knights of the Business Roundtable
The nation's most powerful CEOs are lining up to fund Trump, because they and their corporations want another giant tax cut and rollbacks of regulations. It's as simple as that and there's a word for it: greed.
Jun 19, 2024
The Business Roundtable is an association of more than 200 CEOs of America’s biggest corporations, their most powerful voice in Washington.
Last Wednesday, its chair, Joshua Bolten, told reporters that his group planned to drop “eight figures” while “putting its full weight behind protecting and strengthening tax reform.”
Translated: It’s going to pour money into Trump’s campaign to ensure that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — most of which benefit big corporations and the rich — don’t expire in 2025, as scheduled.
On Thursday, Trump met at the Business Roundtable’s Washington headquarters with over 80 CEOs, including Apple’s Tim Cook, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, and Walmart’s Doug McMillon.
Trump reportedly promised the CEOs he’d cut corporate taxes even further and curtail business regulations if elected president.
Trump’s 2017 tax cuts reduced the rate of corporate income taxes from 35 percent to 21 percent. That has cost the nation $1.3 trillion. Those tax cuts, along with the tax cuts put in place by George W. Bush, are the primary reason the national debt is rising as a percentage of the economy.
What have corporations done with the money they’ve saved? They haven’t invested it or used it to raise wages. Nothing has trickled down to average workers.
A large portion has gone into stock buybacks. The year after the tax cut went into effect, corporations bought back a record $1 trillion of their shares of stock. Buybacks raise stock prices — and, not incidentally, CEO compensation, which is largely in shares of stock.
Making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent—as the Business Roundtable seeks—will cost $4 trillion over the next 10 years, $400 billion per year—and cause the debt to soar.
Yet the CEOs that Trump met with last week have been thriving under Biden.
Corporate profits are way up. Stocks are at near-record levels. Inflation has plummeted. Industries like energy that appeared to be at risk from Biden’s policies are doing well.
So why are these CEOs attracted to Trump, whose antics are likely to destabilize the economy?
Is it mere ideology?
Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City (a nonprofit that represents the city’s top business leaders) relates that Republican billionaires have told her “the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.”
In my experience, CEOs of large corporations are more practical than ideological. They’re coming around to Trump because they want even more tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks—which means even more money in their own pockets.
The Business Roundtable’s motto—“More than Leaders. Leadership”—suggests a purpose higher than making its CEOs and corporations richer.
In August 2019, the Roundtable issued a highly publicized statement expressing “a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders [emphasis in original],” including a commitment to compensating all workers “fairly and providing important benefits,” as well as “supporting the communities in which we work,” and protecting the environment “by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.”
Signed by 181 CEOs of major American corporations, the statement concluded that “each of our stakeholders is essential” and committed “to deliver value to all of them.”
The statement got a lot of favorable press. But it was rubbish. At the time, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were gaining traction in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries with their criticisms of corporate America, and the CEOs of the Roundtable were worried. They needed cover.
Then, after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, many of these CEOs announced they wouldn’t provide campaign funds to Republican members of Congress who refused to certify the 2020 election.
Now, they’re lining up to fund Trump, because they and their corporations want another giant tax cut and rollbacks of regulations.
If the Business Roundtable’s CEOs were honestly committed to all their stakeholders, they wouldn’t seek massive tax cuts.
If they cared about preserving American democracy, they wouldn’t support Trump or any Republican.
The greedy cynicism of America’s corporate elite is now on full display.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sinema High-Fives Manchin Over Filibuster Support While 'Schmoozing With CEOs' at Davos
"Sinema has always been and will always be all about Sinema," said the head of one political advoacy group. "She doesn't care who her policies hurt. She doesn't care that she stood in the way of voting rights and abortion rights, as long as she got the headlines she wanted."
Jan 17, 2023
Independent U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia took heat Tuesday for high-fiving over their shared support of the filibuster while "rubbing elbows with Wall Street CEOs and celebrities in the lap of luxury" at the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Davos, Switzerland.
Sinema—who left the Democratic Party last month—and Manchin sat on a panel with Democrats including Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Rep. Mike Sherill (D-N.J.), and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a multibillionaire. Also on the panel were Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Rep. Mária Salazar (R-Fla.).
At one point during the panel discussion, Manchin asked Sinema, "We still don't agree on getting rid of the filibuster, correct?"
"That's correct," the former far-left anti-war activist replied. The two senators then proceeded to high-five.
"Sinema has always been and will always be all about Sinema. She doesn't care who her policies hurt. She doesn't care that she stood in the way of voting rights and abortion rights, as long as she got the headlines she wanted," Sacha Haworth, spokesperson for the Replace Sinema campaign, said in a statement. "Now, she's on stage in Switzerland, in front of an audience of billionaires and Wall Street CEOs, bragging about her obstruction and giving high-fives. It's no wonder she's so unpopular among Arizonans of every political stripe."
The Replace Sinema campaign is a Change for Arizona 2024 PAC project focused on "defeating her in a potential three-way general election and replacing her with a real Democrat."
Defending her support for the archaic Senate rule historically used to uphold white supremacy and, more recently, to stymie key Biden administration agenda items, Sinema said that "we had free and fair elections all across the country, so one could posit that the push by one political party to eliminate an important guardrail and an institution in our country may have been premature or overreaching in order to get the short-term victories they wanted."
Replace Sinema noted that the senator is "schmoozing with CEOs, securing more dark money, [and] ignoring her constituents" while "rubbing elbows with major players who ran well-funded campaigns to defeat any tax increases for billionaire corporations and Wall Street." These include members of the Business Roundtable, "including JPMorgan Chase's CEO, the head of Blackrock, the CEO of Hewlett Packard, and an executive at Bain & Company."
Center Forward, a dark money group funded by the Business Roundtable, ran ads in Arizona supporting Sinema’s opposition to the tax and drug pricing reforms on President Joe Biden's agenda.
"Where's Kyrsten Sinema today? Is she doing her job in Arizona or in Washington?" Replace Sinema asked in a statement. "Nope. She's in Switzerland, of course. At the famous Davos World Economic Forum, where billionaires and Wall Street execs can sidle up to global leaders and hang out with celebrities in the elitist, most rarefied of settings. As far away from her constituents as possible, and in the lap of luxury. Just as Sinema likes it."
"And of course," the group added, "Sinema will get to spend time with her Wall Street allies who have lobbied for many of the same special tax breaks and loopholes for corporations and billionaires that Sinema has championed."
Keep ReadingShow Less
ACTION ALERT: NPR Celebrates Fast-Track Victory With an All-Corporate Lobbyist Segment
Jun 28, 2015
After the Senate joined the House of Representatives in granting President Barack Obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade agreements, National Public Radio aired one report (Morning Edition, 6/25/15) on the legislative action that paves the way for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and other corporate-friendly international deals. The report, by correspondent Yuki Noguchi, had three sources:
- Business Roundtable president John Engler, "president of the Business Roundtable, which represents more than 200 member companies who took to Capitol Hill armed with data."
- National Retail Federation vice president Jonathan Gold, who "says 7 million retail jobs are directly or indirectly tied to trade."
- National Association of Manufacturers vice president Linda Dempsey, who says the 1993 US/Mexico/Canada trade agreement "NAFTA has actually made US manufacturing overall much stronger and much more competitive."
That's it-according to a search of the Nexis news database, those three corporate lobbyists are all the voices National Public Radio chose to air on the victory of fast-track (or "fast-tract," as the NPR News headline writer had it). What of the literally thousands of labor, environmental and other public interest groups that strenuously opposed giving Obama fast-track authority? They were relegated to a one-line summary from Noguchi:
Labor and environmental groups criticized the fast-track deal, calling it worse than the North American Free Trade Agreement passed two decades ago.
To which manufacturing lobbyist Dempsey was allowed to retort: "The critics are just wrong." So much for the opponents' perspective.
To her credit, Noguchi does correct Dempsey's claim about NAFTA, saying, "After an initial bump following NAFTA, manufacturing employment declined." But that raises the question: If business lobbyists are presenting a distorted picture of the impact of trade deals, why are they the only ones you're allowing to talk to your listeners about trade deals?
ACTION: Please ask NPR ombud Elizabeth Jensen to investigate why NPR News talked only with corporate lobbyists to cover the victory of fast track.
CONTACT: You can contact Ms. Jensen via NPR's contact form or via Twitter: @ejensenNYC.
Keep ReadingShow Less
All Hands On Deck: House Fast Track Vote Expected This Week
Jun 01, 2015
ALL HANDS ON DECK. This is not a drill. The vote in the House of Representatives on fast track trade authority, preapproving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) before the public finds out what is in it, is coming up very soon. It is even possible it could happen later this week. The Senate has already passed fast track; if the House passes this it goes to President Obama and he will sign it. That will make TPP a done deal.
Fast track is a weird procedure, invented by President Richard Nixon, whereby Congress sets aside the normal procedures for considering, debating and voting on a bill - but only for so-called "trade" agreements. Under fast track Congress agrees to rush the agreement through with little debate, agrees not to make any amendments, and not to filibuster it. (How else could they get approval for deals that allow companies to ship jobs and factories out of the country to places where workers and the environment are not protected?)
We don't know much about the contents of TPP - a secret investor/corporate rights agreement negotiated by corporate representatives with labor, environment and other "stakeholders" kept away from the negotiations - but we do know Nike wants it because it will lower tariffs on the shoes they import from Vietnam. We also know that the lowered tariff will mean New Balance may stop making shoes inside the U.S. We know that it opens up Vietnam, which pays workers less than a dollar an hour, for even more "outsourcing" of American jobs. We know that it lets corporations sue governments in "corporate courts" if they think laws and regulations might hurt their profits. (It even lets tobacco companies sue governments for trying to help citizens quit smoking, because that lowers tobacco company profits.)
Passing fast track will mean that the TPP is most likely a done deal when it comes before Congress, even though it is still secret from the public at the time they vote to fast-track it. It also means that an upcoming "trade" deal with Europe will likely go through, whenever that happens. And on top of those, it means that future "trade" deals that we don't even know of yet will likely be approved - even if they are set up to gut our own banking regulations.
The problem here is that these deals are put together using a rigged negotiating process. Our trade negotiators tend to come out of giant, multinational corporations - particularly from Wall Street - and tend to return to them. The 600 "advisors" on the TPP are dominated by corporate representatives. Not only does this set up a corporate-favoring (therefore labor-/environmentalist-hating) mindset within the agency, it also creates an understanding that participants should "play ball" and not make waves against corporate interests if they want to obtain a lucrative corporate position after leaving government. The inevitable result is agreements that rig the game in favor of the interests of the giant, multinational corporations and their investors over the interests of the rest of us - and our government.
And then Congress "greases the skids" with the rigged fast track process to get these deals passed outside of the opportunity for the public to stop them.
There is a reason that Wall Street, giant multinational corporations, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the Republican Party leadership and all the other anti-worker lobbying representatives of giant corporations and billionaires are for TPP - and all of the labor unions, progressives, Democrats (except a few who hope to be lobbyists later), citizen groups, consumer groups, internet freedom, health groups, LGBT groups, food-safety groups, environmental groups and so many others oppose it.
Put it this way: Do you think giant, multinational corporations want working people everywhere to be paid more or less? Do you think they want to increase environmental protections or weaken them? Do you think they want to increase government's power to reign them in and protect citizens or weaken it? You get the picture.
We Can Win
It's not often these days that We the People can beat back the forces of big money - but it can happen. For example, We the People have managed to score major victories on lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender rights. We the People rallied and beat back recent attempts to cut Social Security. We the People have been bypassing Congress and passing minimum wage hikes in cities and states. These are just a few recent examples.
We the People can win if we set our minds to it, and organize and make our voices heard.
People are solidly against more "trade" deals that send jobs out of the country and increase corporate power. A recent Pew poll was reported as showing that people favor trade deals if they create jobs, but the poll also looked at how people see the NAFTA-style trade deals we have. Public Citizen took a look at that poll and reports:
* 46 percent said that free trade agreements "lead to job losses," while only 17 percent said they "create jobs."
* 46 percent said that free trade agreements "make the wages of American workers" lower, while only 11 percent said they make wages higher.
* 34 percent said that free trade agreements actually "slow the economy down" and 25 percent said they do "not make a difference" for economic growth, while only 31 percent said they "make the economy grow."
* Among those who rated their personal financial situation as "poor," 55 percent said free trade agreements have hurt their family's finances, while only 27 percent said they have helped their family's finances.
Other polls show similar sentiments - especially when it comes to fast-tracking these "trade" deals. Even conservatives are opposed to fast track. Take a look at this:
"By more than two to one, voters say they oppose (62 percent) rather than favor passage of fast-track negotiating authority for the TPP deal. Among those with a strong opinion, the ratio climbs to more than three to one (43 percent strongly opposed, just 12 percent strongly favorable)."
"Republicans overwhelmingly oppose giving fast-track authority to the president (8 percent in favor, 87 percent opposed), as do independents (20 percent-66 percent)."
Keep in mind that this widespread opposition is in spite of a virtual media blackout on these issues, particularly on the coming TPP. One of the reasons they are rushing fast track through now (only three days of debate compared to three weeks last time) is because it is starting to get more attention, more and more people are hearing about it, and they know they have to try to pass it soon or not at all.
What To Do
Starting this week people should call and show up at the local offices of their member of Congress. Bring a sign if you show up. Get others to come with you. (Use our click-to-call tool to contact your member of Congress. Or you can click here to find the office of your representative.)
Ask your representative if she or he has read TPP. Get them on record whether they have read it.
* If they haven't read it, they have no business voting to preapprove it. Let them know you'll be writing letters to the editor saying this.
* If they won't tell you if they have read it that is an issue. Let them know you'll be writing letters to the editor letting people know their representative votes on things they are not informed about.
* If they have read it, they should vote against it.
Then ask them why you can't see the text of TPP, especially if they are about to vote to preapprove it with fast track? Why is it being kept secret? (Why are the already-completed parts secret?)
Get on Twitter and Facebook and let people know about fast track and TPP. On Twitter use the hashtag #stopfasttrack. (And go check out what is happening with that hashtag.)
Especially, call, call, call and ask friends and family to call members of Congress and let them know that you are paying attention and do not want fast track. Let them know you will remember how they vote.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy