Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson: Wall Street's Attacks Could Turn President Obama into a True Populist
[Jacob S. Hacker is a professor of political science at Yale University, and Paul Pierson is a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley. They are the authors of "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class."]
Corporate America's stance toward the Obama administration has recently deteriorated into vitriolic attacks and outright opposition. Blackstone Group chief executive Stephen Schwarzman said this summer, for instance, that President Obama's proposal to tax the earnings of private equity and hedge fund managers at the same rate as other workers' income was "like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939." Far more ominous for the White House, business has been putting its money where its mouth is: In sector after sector, corporate campaign contributions ahead of November's elections are going to Republicans....
But this has it exactly backward. The business-Obama divorce isn't about personalities, and it's not because the president and his economic team have pursued anti-business policies. Instead, it reflects a deeper disconnect between corporate leaders and the rest of America, rooted not just in the economic privileges executives enjoy but also in the particular ways business connects to Washington. This disconnect has blinded corporate leaders to the extent to which most Americans feel that the government, far from crushing corporate America, has been looking out only for those at the top....
"Oil and vinegar" would be an understatement today. Corporate leaders assail Obama's rhetoric (he has "vilified" them, they say) and his policies (he is spending and regulating too much, and he wants to let the upper-income Bush tax cuts expire). In June, the Business Roundtable, which represents executives at leading U.S. companies, accused the administration of fostering an "increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation."
These views are clearly overwrought. Yes, Obama has spoken of Wall Street "fat cats," but if anything, his rhetoric has been deliberately non-antagonistic, as when he reassured financial executives in April that Main Street and Wall Street will rise or fall "together as one nation." Compare this with FDR's famous scolding of "organized money": "They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."...
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Corporate America's stance toward the Obama administration has recently deteriorated into vitriolic attacks and outright opposition. Blackstone Group chief executive Stephen Schwarzman said this summer, for instance, that President Obama's proposal to tax the earnings of private equity and hedge fund managers at the same rate as other workers' income was "like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939." Far more ominous for the White House, business has been putting its money where its mouth is: In sector after sector, corporate campaign contributions ahead of November's elections are going to Republicans....
But this has it exactly backward. The business-Obama divorce isn't about personalities, and it's not because the president and his economic team have pursued anti-business policies. Instead, it reflects a deeper disconnect between corporate leaders and the rest of America, rooted not just in the economic privileges executives enjoy but also in the particular ways business connects to Washington. This disconnect has blinded corporate leaders to the extent to which most Americans feel that the government, far from crushing corporate America, has been looking out only for those at the top....
"Oil and vinegar" would be an understatement today. Corporate leaders assail Obama's rhetoric (he has "vilified" them, they say) and his policies (he is spending and regulating too much, and he wants to let the upper-income Bush tax cuts expire). In June, the Business Roundtable, which represents executives at leading U.S. companies, accused the administration of fostering an "increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation."
These views are clearly overwrought. Yes, Obama has spoken of Wall Street "fat cats," but if anything, his rhetoric has been deliberately non-antagonistic, as when he reassured financial executives in April that Main Street and Wall Street will rise or fall "together as one nation." Compare this with FDR's famous scolding of "organized money": "They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."...