Obama Says ‘Progress’ Made in Meeting With CEOs (Update1)
By Kate Andersen Brower and Julianna Goldman
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said his meeting with 20 company executives brought “progress” in efforts to accelerate the U.S. economic recovery.
The business leaders, who included UBS AG Chairman for the Americas Robert Wolf and Honeywell International Inc. Chairman David Cote, met with Obama for more than four hours today for a discussion aimed at fostering cooperation and finding ways to spur U.S. economic growth.
“We focused on jobs and investment, and they feel optimistic that by working together we can get some of that cash off the sidelines,” Obama said as he left the session, referring to the almost $2 trillion that he said companies have amassed.
The meeting at Blair House, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, was convened by the president as part of an outreach to business to confer on issues such as education, exports, regulation and the budget deficit. It comes as his administration works to heal a strained relationship with the business community and to collaborate on ways to boost jobs, with the nation’s unemployment rate at 9.8 percent.
Obama is generating more optimism among CEOs after a series of business-friendly overtures, including a deal to extend tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 and efforts to boost exports such as a U.S.-South Korea free-trade agreement and a loosening of controls on some technology sales.
A ‘Restart’
“Things were said on both sides that shouldn’t have been and did not further the opportunity to work together,” Cote said as he arrived at Blair House this morning. “This is our chance to do that. I give the president a lot of credit for being the man big enough to say ‘Let’s restart, let’s work on how do we create a more vibrant economy.’”
The topics included the tax code, government regulations and ways to encourage businesses to spend and invest.
In addition to Cote, several of the executives said they were ready to work with the administration toward the goal of boosting the economy.
Motorola Inc. co-CEO Greg Brown said the administration’s engagement with the business community has been “very substantive.” He said he expects that will continue after today’s meeting.
“The administration is receptive and understanding of what needs to occur to create jobs,” Brown said in a Bloomberg Television interview after the session. “We have to invest in this country.”
Trade and Exports
Boeing Co. CEO James McNerney said Obama told the executives that the administration is committed to pursuing free trade agreements that would increase U.S. exports and jobs. Obama set a tone for the meeting that “we’re all in this together,” McNerney said on Bloomberg Television.
“There was a sense in the room that Korea is the beginning, not the end,” he said of the recently completed trade pact with South Korea that now is awaiting congressional approval.
“We’re probably going to add four or five thousand people next year,” said McNerney, a member of Obama’s advisory export council. “It’s because of export growth.”
Twenty executives took part in this morning’s session, which was closed to the press. Along with Wolf, Cote, McNerney and Brown, those invited included Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt, Intel Corp. CEO Paul Otellini and Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts. Other CEOs attending were DuPont Co.’s Ellen Kullman, PepsiCo Inc.’s Indra Nooyi, Dow Chemical Co.’s Andrew Liveris, Cisco Systems Inc.’s John Chambers, Kenneth Chenault of American Express Co., Duke Energy Corp.’s James E. Rogers, NextEra Energy Inc.’s Lew Hay and Eli Lilly & Co. President and CEO John Lechleiter.
Advisory Boards
A number of the executives at the meeting serve on several of Obama’s outside advisory boards, including Wolf; Cote; McNerney; General Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt; United Parcel Service Inc. CEO Scott Davis; Penny Pritzker, who led Obama’s campaign fundraising effort and is chairman of Pritzker Realty Group; Mark Gallogly, founder and managing partner of Centerbridge Partners LP; and venture capitalist John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Obama has been seeking to strengthen relationships with the business community following criticism from some executives and business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of the administration’s overhaul of the health-care system and financial regulations. He said private companies are crucial to the U.S. climbing out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Job Creation
“I am looking forward to getting good ideas from them, but I am definitely going to talk to them about how we can get more hiring out there,” Obama said as he walked to Blair House.
A survey by the Business Roundtable, which comprises 193 chief executives whose companies employ more than 12 million people, found that CEO optimism during the fourth quarter climbed to the highest levels since 2006 amid a brighter outlook for sales, investment and hiring.
The economic outlook index rose to 101, the Washington- based group said yesterday. Readings higher than 50 coincide with an economic expansion. The gauge increased from a third- quarter reading of 86.
The guest list includes executives the White House has consulted in the past.
GE’s Immelt, who heads the world’s biggest provider of power-generation equipment, is a member of the Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board and was in India with Obama last month.
Another frequent visitor is Liveris of Dow, the world’s second-biggest chemical company. Liveris was at the White House last week for a meeting of Obama’s export council as well as a White House dinner May 4 and another administration forum on jobs and energy Dec. 3, 2009.
Nooyi has been to the executive mansion for consultations. Like Immelt, she was one of the guests at a White House dinner Feb. 23 before Obama gave an address to the Business Roundtable, and she was among the executives who made last month’s trip to India.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kate Andersen Brower in Washington at kandersen7@bloomberg.net; Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in Washington at msilva34@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: December 15, 2010 15:28 EST |
