They just openly influence peddling now
by digby
Oh here’s some good news. The nation’s CEOs have decide they need to be more engaged in government than they already are:
The high-profile examples run the gamut: from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg — who attached his name to immigration reform this year along with a slew of Silicon Valley execs — to JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, who’s had a high-profile, if on-again-off-again, relationship with Washington.
Others come to town with less fanfare. Goldman Sachs President and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn made the trek up to Capitol Hill in November to meet with House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas and other Republicans as the fight over debt and spending flared.
President Barack Obama, who has struggled to win over the business community, has hosted CEOs regularly in his second term. Yahoo’s Marissa Meyer and Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein met with Obama in February to talk immigration and debt. In May, energy leaders, including Edison Electric Institute President Tom Kuhn, met with Obama privately to discuss the industry’s response to mega storms.
Executives say the reason for their change is simple: the stakes have gotten higher.
Just look at the range of big policy questions on Washington’s plate from debt and spending, to the tax code, to health care and immigration.Paul Stebbins, executive chairman of World Fuel Services, a Fortune 100 company, told POLITICO that the long-term debt outlook has been a key factor.
“I think this has changed the sensibility of how CEOs engage in the process,” said Stebbins, who is a member of the CEO-group Fix the Debt. “This goes far beyond my K Street lobbyist is going to help me get some tax thing. It’s a much deeper issue about the future of the country.”
“This isn’t a short-term, ‘we’ll be done by September.’ This is long term,” he said of how CEOs will continue to engage in Washington.
That’s not reassuring.
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