In Bush's Policies, Business Wins
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 8, 2004; Page A04
For three years, President Bush has been willing to anger environmentalists, civil libertarians of the right and left, unions, trial lawyers and conservative advocates of free markets. But one group that almost always comes out a winner when Bush sets policy is the business community, from Fortune 500 corporations to small, family-run companies.
Bush's recent immigration initiative is a prime example. While commentary and reaction focused largely on how it might affect foreign-born workers, the unquestioned beneficiaries are U.S. employers. If the proposal becomes law, they will have a vastly enlarged pool of prospective workers, many willing to perform the dirtiest and most dangerous tasks for low pay.
The policy's likely impact on other constituent groups -- including some important to a Republican president -- is far less clear. Social conservatives, for example, were furious at Bush's plan to make it easier for undocumented workers to stay in this country. The response from leaders of the nation's most prominent Hispanic organizations -- a constituency heavily courted by Republicans and Democrats alike -- ranged from ambivalence to outright opposition because of the administration's failure to provide a direct avenue to citizenship.
But a range of employers hungry for low-wage, low-skill workers hailed the proposal without hesitation. The Essential Worker Immigration Coalition -- an alliance of associations and lobbies representing nursing homes, hotels, road and building contractors, restaurants, landscape companies and meatpackers -- praised the Bush initiative.
"The inability of employers to hire enough U.S. workers will be alleviated through his proposal of allowing businesses to utilize temporary workers from abroad," the group said.
The immigration proposal fits a broader pattern encompassing Bush's tax legislation, regulatory decisions, labor policies and economic strategies.
"Since 1932, we have not had a president who has been more closely allied with business and more sympathetic to large and powerful corporations," said Columbia University historian Alan Brinkley, a specialist in the American presidency.
"It's hard to think of anyone [in the 20th century] who has been more connected to the corporate world than maybe Herbert Hoover" in the 20th and 21st centuries, said Robert Dallek, professor emeritus at Boston University and a prominent presidential biographer.
The ties between the Bush administration and U.S. businesses are further cemented by campaign donations from business owners and executives. Of the 391 "Pioneers" and "Rangers" who have raised $100,000 or $200,000 respectively for Bush's reelection bid, 70 are from the finance industry, 27 from the energy industry, 12 from insurance, 25 from the communications industry and 16 from the transportation industry. Seventy are corporate lawyers and lobbyists.
Another 94 of the Pioneers and Rangers are from industries actively supporting the administration's immigration proposal, including real estate developers, food service, the health care industry and the commercial construction sector.
The trade associations in the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition -- not counting their corporate members or the executives of those corporations -- are themselves major political players. In 2000-2002, these business associations and their political action committees gave $5.8 million to candidates and parties, 71 percent of it to the GOP.
In many areas, the Bush administration is more in sync with corporate America than were the Clinton administration and earlier Democratic presidencies. In environmental regulation, for instance, Bush appointees have reduced the obligations of power plants to upgrade pollution controls when expanding or upgrading their facilities. The administration has backed industry-supported rules governing emissions from coal-fired utility plants despite objections from consumer, health and environmental groups.
When the White House set forth a six-point agenda to restore the economy late last year, many items matched goals expressed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Both called for: limits on corporate liability (sometimes known as "tort reform"); making permanent a series of tax cuts now scheduled to expire in the years ahead; new tax breaks for energy producers; new free-trade agreements; and government subsidies of employer health care costs.
On "the major areas of concern, I don't think there is much separation at all," said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs of the Chamber of Commerce. "Some shading, but, largely speaking, we are on the same page."
The president and the Chamber of Commerce are in harmony on several issues as well, including pay regulations that could exclude thousands of workers from overtime benefits, and Medicare legislation backed by the pharmaceutical and health industries.
One of the administration's most significant domestic achievements -- enactment of three tax cuts -- was boosted by massive lobbying efforts from business coalitions that overcame alliances of labor, civil rights, women's groups and other liberal interest groups.
"The Bush administration made tax reduction the centerpiece of its economic policy -- three major tax cuts amounting to $1.7 trillion in relief. The chamber helped lead the fight for this tax relief," said Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, in his "State of American Business 2004."
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