Business group: Use bipartisan momentum from trade deal to grow economy
A leading business group on Thursday urged President Obama to use recent bipartisan momentum from the trade deal to spur further cooperation with Congress on economic growth.
The Business Roundtable wrote in a letter to the president that the passage of two pieces of trade legislation into law earlier this week provides “powerful evidence that by working together, Congress and the administration can accomplish great things for the American people.”
The White House can use that wave of cooperation to strike further deals growing jobs and the economy, the group said.
{mosads}The president’s Monday signing of trade promotion authority, also known as fast-track, and a Trade Adjustment Assistance measure “represented the kind of bipartisan cooperation that business leaders have long advocated as necessary to produce more robust economic growth and job creation,” wrote John Engler, the group’s president, in the letter.
“Business Roundtable believes the approach used in the trade debates — collaboration across the political aisle, with economic growth the overriding goal — can serve as an effective model for even more legislative successes this year and next,” Engler wrote.
He said there are growing opportunities for Democrats and Republicans to work together on issues such as overhauling the tax code, improving the nation’s education framework, immigration reform and infrastructure funding.
Business Roundtable also highlighted 46 recently completed, or pending regulations or policies that they say could hamper the economy’s expansion.
The group pointed specifically to nine regulations they have deemed most troubling — including rules on greenhouse gas emissions, employer reporting requirements under ObamaCare and net neutrality — and called for the Obama administration to address them.
“Regulatory burdens in the United States are discouraging investment and jobs creation, and the regulatory burdens here are becoming greater than in other developed economies” Engler wrote.
“This trend is not sustainable if we want an economy that provides opportunities for all.”
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