Obama's barbed words worry corporate world

[May 15, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Relations between President Barack Obama and U.S. corporate leaders have grown tense in recent weeks, with business groups bristling over his sharp rebukes of lenders and multinational companies in particular.

Executives and trade groups that praised Obama's outreach during his post-election transition period say they have felt less welcome since he took office in January. More troubling, they say, are his populist-tinged, sometimes acid critiques of certain sectors, including large companies that keep some profits overseas to reduce their U.S. tax burden.

On Thursday in New Mexico, Obama chastised the credit card industry for sharply raising interest rates or fees with hard-to-find notice. He said consumers should be protected from "all kinds of harsh penalties and fees that you never knew about." Some of the dealings by credit card companies, he said, "are not honest."

He tempered his comments, however, saying Americans must be responsible for the debt they incur.

"Banks are businesses, too," Obama told a gathering in Albuquerque. "They have a right to insist that timely payments are made."

The gentler remarks, after weeks of increasingly sharp rhetoric, reflect Obama's efforts to avoid a full-scale war with business interests. He picks his shots, praising companies that embrace his proposals for health care and other matters, while hammering those that oppose him.

Some business leaders have focused on the harsh words lately, saying the president is being unduly divisive.

"It is traditional class-warfare rhetoric," said Jade West, a lobbyist for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. "It's a little bit frightening."

Bill Miller, political director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called Obama's remarks "an oversimplification of the real world."

Particularly in the areas of finance and taxation, Obama's language often seems to echo, and perhaps fuel, public anger over matters such as the large bonuses paid to executives of AIG, an insurance giant that was bailed out with public money.

When the president called for ending tax breaks for corporations doing business overseas, he assailed a "broken tax system, written by well-connected lobbyists on behalf of well-heeled interests and individuals."

In proposing to overhaul college loans, Obama said, "We have a student loan system that's rigged to reward private lenders without any risk."

After he accused a handful of Chrysler debt holders of seeking "an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout," some reportedly received death threats.

Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker says Obama uses such pointed language to create an us-against-them dynamic in which he aligns himself with average Americans and depicts his opponents as selfish powers working just for themselves. Obama's targets, Baker says, usually are unsympathetic and faceless corporations or hedge funds.

"If you use inflammatory, populist language," Baker said in an interview, "it's best to use it on organizations or interests that aren't terribly popular."

"It's a negotiating ploy," he said. In the early stages of a presidency, he said, "you advance your cause very dramatically, even confrontationally."

The ploy can prove potent. On May 8, the final holdouts among Chrysler's creditors reluctantly agreed to accept far smaller repayments from a bankruptcy reorganization than they had first demanded. Obama's public rebukes had taken a toll, as had his hardball negotiations with all of Chrysler's lenders, unions, executives and other key players.

"The only point the president was making was that many creditors went the extra mile and kept Chrysler afloat," said David Axelrod, a top adviser to Obama. A handful of holdouts forced the bankruptcy, he said, "and it was important to explain that fact."

Axelrod said Obama has been consistent in describing groups that support or oppose his policies. For instance, he said, Obama has long criticized multinational companies that postpone or avoid paying certain federal taxes by keeping profits overseas.

The president, he said, is careful "not to castigate the vast majority of working people who are playing on the square."

Leaders of several corporate groups said they want greater access to Obama and his top advisers. Being invited to "summit" discussions with 200 people at the White House isn't enough, they say.

The administration defends its record. Obama invited members of the Business Council to the White House on Feb. 13. A month later he fielded questions from top corporate executives at a forum of the Business Roundtable. And this month Obama lauded Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and other major businesses trying to hold down employees' medical costs.

Still, some groups seethe over various barbs and proposals, including Obama's bid to end some tax breaks for multinational companies.

The president says his plan will shift more jobs to the United States, but "it does exactly the opposite," said John J. Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable.

Despite the hour that Obama devoted to the trade group's March 12 forum at a Washington hotel, it is coordinating a major lobbying campaign against the president's tax plans.

"The international tax provisions are something that we oppose very, very strongly," Castellani said.

West, of the wholesalers' trade group, said Obama remains popular, but he risks overdoing the populist attacks. "There is overreaching that will catch up with them," she said.

A top GOP strategist warned Republicans and their corporate allies to move cautiously.

"Your political opponents are the Democrats in Congress and the bureaucrats in Washington, not President Obama," Frank Luntz wrote in a memo to GOP lawmakers. "Every time we test language that criticized the president by name, the response was negative, even among Republicans."

Castellani said Obama "puts things in a way that very much resonates with public sentiment."

Tax policy for multinational companies "is a very complex issue," he said. "It's incumbent upon us to make it simpler."

[Associated Press; By CHARLES BABINGTON]

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