The
President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas J. Donohue, sounds
very optimistic as he touts in the final paragraph of his address in his State
of American Business of 2014. His skill in leadership is either great or talk,
for he spoke as if this is the year to turn the economy around. Thomas spoke
about fixing many policies of the government as congress has been the least
productive. Although his agenda is trying to fix many broken things, some of
which I believe is out of his hands, his perspective is not radical. President
Donohue spoke about changing many integral troubled parts of society that have
take a tremendous amount of effort to change because the greatness of the
government. These are the following institutions: entitlements, energy,
education, immigration, infrastructure, government productivity, Tax Reform,
and more. I believe that Thomas is speaking as if he is developing a unify
movement of comprehensive reform to work with every man. Much of his speech is
so vague that not the goals are unreachable and unrealistic. The few things
that I saw that he can directly influence by lobbying and campaigning are
Obamacare, since it is still young; curbing lawsuit abuse; and negotiate in
trade deals. His optimism is good; however, his agenda is not specific enough.
This is my critic to Thomas Donohue’s State of American Business address.
The
statistics that President Donohue is facing are troubling despite his optimism.
The following are some of the statistics: overall growth of 2013, which I
assume is GDP, will be between 1.8% and 2%; Europe is our largest trade
partner; “Middle class families have not seen decent increases in their real
incomes for a long time;” regulatory overreaches limit businesses development;
schools are still failing; “In ten years the total price tag for Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will reach $3 trillion a year;” “The share of
the budget to pay for these programs plus the interest on our debt will expand
from 65% of the budget last year to 76% in 2023;” “Each and every day another
10,000 baby boomers retire—and that will add up to 77 million new retirees over
the next 17 years;” “In just another month, Congress and the president will
need to raise the debt ceiling yet again;” “It is beyond me how this nation can
be so complacent while some 30% and more of our young people don’t even
graduate from high school;” “the first time in history, we’re in a situation
where America is taking from the young in order to support the old. We’re doing
this by continuing to ignore the entitlement crisis, by piling up trillions of
dollars in new debt, and by trapping so many of our young people in failing
schools and denying them a fair shot at the American dream.” It is amazing that
Thomas Donohue has hopes to address all of these facts within one year.
I figured
that the President thereof would be more objective in his agenda. He is claiming with great optimism. “I think
you can tell I’m a pretty optimistic fellow.” He is attempting to approach
years of unyielding policies and institutions, naming “comprehensive tax
reform,” entitlements such as “Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,”
infrastructure, opening up the “more recoverable conventional oil and gas off
our shores than the proven oil reserves of Europe and Asia combined—yet 87% of
it remains off limits. We have enough recoverable coal to power our economy for
more than 200 years,” and more. “Now the pundits will tell you it’s going to be
hard to accomplish much of anything in an election year. We hope to turn that
assumption on its ear by turning the upcoming elections into a motivator for
change.” “We'll push for government reform to modernize a regulatory process
that hasn't been updated since Harry Truman was president.”
One may
wonder the qualifications of myself to critic the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s
president, but I have followed the developments in the world somewhat closely;
now less than before. I have developed skills in listening to sort through the
fluff of news, for that was the exact purpose of a blog of mine. President
Thomas Donohue is addressing the world. The speech is great, keeping everyone
on their toes, but his agenda is not objective enough to accomplish the hopes
of the people.
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