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.
