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 "If you look at what's happened over the last four or five years,
the folks who don't have a right to complain are the folks at the
top," Obama said in an interview conducted last week and posted on
the magazine's website late on Saturday.
Republicans have sought to portray Obama as anti-business, and
businesses have complained that Obama's signature healthcare law and
the Dodd-Frank financial reforms have raised costs.
Business groups are lobbying against his new plan to curb
climate-changing carbon emissions from power plants.
"I would take the complaints of the corporate community with a grain
of salt," Obama said, arguing that his policies have been friendly
to business. "They always complain about regulation. That's their
job."
Obama has increasingly promoted populist economic measures such as
raising the minimum wage to motivate Democratic voters ahead of
critical November congressional elections, in which his Democrats
face the prospect of losing control of the Senate.
"Oftentimes, you'll hear some hedge-fund manager say, 'Oh, he's just
trying to stir class resentment'. No. Feel free to keep your house
in the Hamptons and your corporate jet, etcetera. I'm not concerned
about how you're living," Obama said.
"I am concerned about making sure that we have a system in which the
ordinary person who is working hard and is being responsible can get
ahead," he said.
Obama had a frosty relationship with business in his first term,
famously telling an interviewer: "I did not run for office to be
helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street."
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The White House had toned down that rhetoric, and in Obama's second
term has rallied corporate America for support to advance executive
actions to hire the long-term unemployed, get better technology in
schools and provide more opportunities for young African-American
men.
Obama slammed Republicans for what he termed a thread of
"anti-globalization" that has stalled reauthorization of funding for
the Export-Import Bank, which he said would hurt U.S. businesses
trying to finance overseas trade. But in the interview, Obama chided
business for a lack of social responsibility, citing a "general
view" that "the only responsibility that a corporate CEO has is to
his shareholders."
"There's a huge gap between the professed values and visions of
corporate CEOs and how their lobbyists operate in Washington," he
said.
"My challenge to them consistently is, 'Is your lobbyist working as
hard on those issues as he or she is on preserving that tax break
that you've got?' And if the answer is no, then you don't care about
it as much as you say."
(Editing by Lynne O'Donnell and EricWalsh)
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