The CEOs Wont Save Us
BY DAVID DAYEN
Our everyday lives have become so consumed by partisan politics that fabulously wealthy and powerful CEOs can become folk heroes for defying a president. Since Donald Trump preempted mass resignations from his business executive panels last week by disbanding two of them (on manufacturing and economic policy) and canceling a third (on infrastructure), pundits have fallen over themselves to praise CEOs as the moral conscience of the nation.
The same corporate celebrity culture that elevated Trump from the boardroom to the White House is now building monuments to the bold CEOs who criticize him. But like the sets of The Apprentice, the backdrop is fake. Public relations spin aside, major corporations remain committed to the Trump agenda, and they have practically been the sole beneficiaries of the administration’s actions thus far. The only difference after Charlottesville is that all their lobbying and favor-trading has gone underground.
Let’s first stipulate that these corporate advisory panels, a staple of presidencies in the modern age, shouldn’t exist. They merely allow CEOs to influence the president directly, rather than through registered lobbyists. If you’re not remembering any made-for-TV White House meetings in which Medicaid or food stamps beneficiaries detailed their plight to President Trump and made the case for increased benefits, that’s because such open groveling only happens with business titans.
But CEOs didn’t really need to nudge this administration toward their preferred goals. Don’t believe the nonsense that the Trump-business alliance has somehow been “uneasy.” Since the inauguration, Trump’s executive branch has sought to strip as many regulations out of the federal register as possible, employing teams of subordinates with industry ties to do the job. The Environmental Protection Agency under Trump is on track to become the most responsive federal agency to corporate entreaties in history. And the Trump administration legislative agenda reads like a corporate wish list as well: huge corporate tax cuts, privatizing the nation’s infrastructure, and so on.
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https://newrepublic.com/article/144449/ceos-wont-save-us
