The likely nominations of Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama all but ensure major changes in Washington in the next four years. With the 2008 election intensifying, business leaders need to engage more vigorously in the national debate. It is time to be proactive in shaping the debate, not just in lobbying for our self-interests.
The consequences of the 2000 and 2004 elections suggest business leaders should be careful about what we wish for. All too often, seemingly obvious choices have long-term outcomes that have not been adequately considered:
- In 2000 we wished for tax cuts and got large deficits and widening income disparities.
- We wished for fewer regulations and got the subprime crisis and mammoth losses on Wall Street that forced firms to raise capital from sovereign wealth funds.
- We wished for a weaker U.S. dollar so we could export more and got rapidly escalating oil and corn prices as foreign governments preferred holding commodities over dollars.
- We supported invading Iraq and found our country trapped in a war we don´t know how to end and a $2-3 trillion price tag.
- We wished for a free enterprise health care system and wound up with health care costs that make our companies non-competitive and 45 million uninsured citizens.
- We abandoned the Kyoto treaty instead of renegotiating it and lost vital time as the global environment worsened.
As a result, trust in the president and the Congress, as well as business leaders, has fallen to the lowest levels of our lifetime. That should be a source of grave concern.
In every election, candidates promise great things to many constituencies in order to get elected. The danger in this election is that voters may get so upset with the current mess that the political pendulum swings too far the other way, causing politicians to devise hasty solutions that result in unintended consequences. (Does anyone recall the thirty-day legislation that produced Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley?)
The good news is that both parties are poised to nominate authentic leaders for president. These two candidates seem prepared to engage in an intense debate about what´s best for America for the next decade, instead of focusing on minor issues, false charges, and gimmicks.
The next president needs to face the realities of our current situation and level with the American people by describing the problems as they really are. Then we need presidential leadership to engage all of us in concerted actions to get America back on track. Business leaders should participate vigorously in this debate, going beyond our self-interests to focus on what is best for the country. We cannot sustain business success unless America is strong and our economy is healthy.
Business leaders should offer the new administration and Congress a thoughtful platform of implement policies and programs that will restore America´s economic strength and our standing in the global community. This requires us to address the broader issues that will ensure competitive companies, healthy markets, and equitable rules of engagement.
Specifically, we should advocate for:
- A fiscally responsible federal budget that strengthens our long-term competitive position in the world economy.
- Free trade agreements that enable U.S. companies to compete around the world while insuring our employees are fully competitive and have secure futures.
- A focus on innovative products and services to strengthen exports and provide domestic jobs.
- An education and training system that enables all citizens to have productive jobs providing livable incomes.
- An energy policy that reduces consumption, improves efficiency, and increases the proportion of supply from North American while creating breakthroughs in renewable sources.
- An efficient and competitive health care system that covers all citizens.
- A foreign policy in which the U.S. collaborates with other countries to restore world peace and strengthens our military without repeated military incursions.
A tall order? It is indeed. This agenda must be challenging because the problems are so great. We may not get there in the next four years but, to quote author Stephen Covey, we need to "begin with the end in mind," so that we know we are heading in the right direction and making progress in getting there.
That´s the only way we can restore the confidence of the American people in business and political leaders. And it is best way to insure America and its business community is strong and vibrant.
Posted May 8, 2008 by Bill George |
Filed in: Politics
An open letter to President Bill Clinton:
You are facing one of the leadership challenges of your life. You need to decide whether to put the interests of the United States and the world ahead of your personal interests. Doing so means setting aside getting your wife elected and maintaining control over the Democratic Party.
Only you - not former President Jimmy Carter, not Al Gore, not any other Democrat - can convince your wife that the country´s best interests dictate that she should abandon her failed attempt to become the country´s first female president. It is far more important that both of you dedicate the next five months to uniting your supporters behind the election of Senator Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.
That´s what leadership is all about.
No one can doubt that you have been a great leader for the U.S. and the world during the past sixteen years. The contrast of your presidency with that of President George W. Bush is so painful that it doesn´t merit recounting here. Yet through all of President Bush´s failed attempts to repudiate your accomplishments as president, you have stayed above the fray and dedicated yourself to make the world a better place, using your personal foundation as a vehicle. In so doing, you have gained the admiration of leaders throughout the world, including many of your former detractors.
One of your greatest qualities as president was facing reality: in 1994 you recognized that you had to abandon your wife´s flawed health care plan in order to save your presidency. On welfare you faced the reality that the welfare plans of the Democrats´ New Deal weren´t working and joined with Republicans to implement the welfare-to-work plan. On trade you faced the realities of globalization and supported free trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT, even while sacrificing the political support of the labor unions. On immigration you faced the reality that expanding visas for legal immigrants was critical for innovation, especially in the high tech industry. Your brilliant economic policies ignited to the greatest period of growth and innovation since the post-war period and even created a surplus for the federal budget, a dramatic contrast with President George W. Bush´s mammoth deficit spending.
Now you need to face the reality that your wife has already lost her bid to become the first woman president. The ultimate outcome of the primary campaign has been known since Senator Obama won ten consecutive elections in March.
All too late, Senator Clinton tried to remake her image from a Washington elitist who gained experience as your spouse into Rosie the Riveter, a tough-talking fighter who has endured sniper fire and advocates complex solutions for the working class and the elderly. To derail Obama´s campaign, she teamed with John McCain in attempting to pin an elitist label on Obama, who grew up with a single mother on food stamps and gave up the potential for the lucrative career as a Wall Street lawyer to work in the projects in Chicago´s south side.
Hillary played up racial fears about Obama by highlighting his associations with Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan and suggested that this devoted Christian was not a Muslim "as far as I know." As she became more desperate, she reopened fears of September 11, threatened to "obliterate Iran," and pandered to the electorate with her summer gas tax holiday that she knew would never come to pass. These actions earned her the support of Rush Limbaugh, whose crossover Republican voters, eager to keep these attacks on Senator Obama going, likely provided the margin of her slim victory in Indiana.
Regrettably, the result of her "scorched earth" campaign to destroy Senator Barack Obama´s bid to become the first non-white president has only helped Senator John McCain´s election bid and provided him with free video clips for the fall campaign. By pitting whites and Hispanics against blacks, old against young, blue collar against white collar, and women against men, she has employed the politics of "divide and conquer" instead of calling for national unity to restore our country to its former greatness.
If you really want to help our country, you will convince you wife to stop dragging out the inevitable and get behind Obama´s campaign to defeat John McCain while there is still time. Both you and your wife have proven themselves to be dedicated campaigners. Now you need to work just as hard to elect Senator Obama.
Although your time to lead the country has past, there is so much you can still do to help the world. But your most important leadership task now to help Barack Obama become your logical successor, because Obama is the only person who can unite the country to face the ever-increasing problems of the economy, racial divides, education, health care, energy and the environment, and poverty, while getting our troops out of Iraq and rebuilding our relationships with the rest of the world.
