U.S. is 'taking from the young,' top business lobbyist says

Reuters

4:46 p.m. CST, January 8, 2014

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The top lobbyist in Washington

for American business warned in unusually stark terms on
Wednesday that younger Americans will face diminished economic
prospects in coming years unless the United States reins in
spending on the elderly and improves its education system.

"I worry that for the first time in history, we're in a
situation where America is taking from the young in order to
support the old," Thomas Donohue, the head of the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, said in a speech that laid out the powerful
business group's agenda.

Donohue's remarks reflect the bitter residue of a years-long
budget battle that has largely failed to tackle the nation's
long-term fiscal problems, as well as a new focus on inequality
in Washington.

As in other areas, the business group is likely to clash
with the Obama administration on some of its efforts to narrow
the gap between the rich and the poor, even as it supports other
approaches. The Chamber will back the administration's push to
impose common academic standards on a primary education system
that is largely administered at the state and local level,
Donohue said.

"If our nation doesn't get damn serious about the millions
of young people who drop out of school, or who graduate unable
to master the most basic skills and work habits, nothing else we
do or try is going to work," he said.

The business group does not back Obama's effort to boost the
minimum wage, Donohue said, and will oppose other efforts that
would impose more regulations on business or slow economic
growth.

The Chamber will also try to build public support for
reining in the expensive, but popular, health and pension
programs for the elderly that are projected to drive the U.S.
public debt in coming decades, Donohue said, though he
acknowledged that effort is unlikely to bear fruit soon.

"Entitlement reform is not going to get done in a serious
way for a couple of years yet. We have to work up to this," he
said.

With a lobbying budget that places it among the top interest
groups in Washington, the U.S. Chamber has been a high-profile
antagonist of an administration that it sees as hostile to
business. The group led the push against Obama's signature
healthcare law and has opposed efforts to curb greenhouse gases
and tighten financial regulations.

But over the past year, the Chamber and the White House have
pursued common goals as both have sought to overhaul immigration
rules, expand global trade and boost highway spending. Those
efforts will continue this year, Donohue said.

At the same time, the Chamber found itself at odds with some
of the more strident elements of the Republican party as they
refused to fund wide swaths of the government and pushed the
country to the brink of default in a failed effort to undercut
Obama's signature health care law in October.

That division is likely to widen over the coming year, as
the Chamber backs more pragmatic Republican candidates in
primary elections. The Chamber has already spent money to back
candidates in West Virginia, Idaho, Kentucky and Alabama and is
considering whether to intervene in about six primary races
right now, Donohue said.

"People who walk in and announce, 'I'm going to run for the
House or the Senate and my idea is to burn down the town,' we're
not interested in them," he told a press conference.

The Chamber could further disappoint conservatives by
seeking to modify the health reform law known as "Obamacare"
rather than push for its repeal.

"We're not going to get rid of that bill, so we're going to
have to devise ways to make it work," Donohue said.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Karey Van Hall and Dan
Grebler)
end quote from: