Business Group Pledges Support for U.S. Lawmakers to Cut Budget Deficits
Committee for Economic Development President Charles Kolb
Dennis Brack/Bloomberg
President of the Committee for Economic Development Charles Kolb.
President of the Committee for Economic Development Charles Kolb. Photographer: Dennis Brack/Bloomberg
A group of business leaders pledged to back any lawmakers who craft a long-term plan to cut the U.S. budget deficit, saying all tax and spending policies should be part of the negotiations.
“The business community strongly supports a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan and will support members of Congress who help get it enacted,” according to a statement from the Committee for Economic Development released today in Washington. “Serious deficit reduction cannot be painless, and no one should expect or demand that the spending and revenue provisions they care most about will not be touched.”
Among the 104 business and academic leaders who endorsed the statement were Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who led President Barack Obama’s debt commission last year, as well as Alice Rivlin and former Senator Pete Domenici, who head a debt- reduction task force at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Obama has directed Vice President Joe Biden to start meeting next month with congressional leaders from both parties with the goal of producing a deficit-reduction agreement by the end of June. The timing would coincide with a debate over raising the nation’s debt limit, which Republicans have tied to cutting government spending. Today’s statement urged lawmakers to participate in the Biden-led process.
Separate Plans
The White House and House Republicans have offered separate plans to reduce cumulative budget deficits by $4 trillion, over 12 years and 10 years respectively. Obama’s plan would include $1 trillion in tax increases that his advisers say could be raised from families earning at least $250,000, while the Republicans’ measure wouldn’t raise taxes.
Standard & Poor’s this week put the U.S. government on notice that it risks losing its AAA credit rating unless policy makers agree on a plan by 2013 to reduce budget deficits and the national debt. Sovereign credit quality has gained prominence as European countries from Greece to Portugal struggle to finance their debt.
Europe’s debt crisis shows the perils of allowing deficits to grow unchecked, Charles Kolb, president of the Committee for Economic Development, said in a telephone interview. He said his group’s statement does not take a political stand or endorse any specific measures, other than to oppose any “preconditions” for reaching a deal.
“We’re at a point now where there are all sorts of warning bells,” Kolb said. “Anyone who thinks that this couldn’t happen in this country is kidding themselves.”
Also supporting the statement were Jeffrey Joerres, chairman and chief executive officer of Milwaukee-based Manpower Inc., the world’s second-largest provider of temporary workers; Patrick Toole, vice president and chief information officer of Armonk, New York-based International Business Machines Corp., the world’s largest computer-services provider; and Michael Morris, chairman and CEO of American Electric Power Co., based in Columbus, Ohio.
To contact the reporters on this story: Rebecca Christie in Washington at rchristie4@bloomberg.net; Ian Katz in Washington at ikatz2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net
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