FOR 'PARTY OF BUSINESS', ALLEGIANCES ARE SHIFTING, by Jackie Calmes -- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/us/politics/a-shift-for-gop-as-party-of-business.html?_r=0
Interesting article addresses the obvious fact that big business doesn't want another recession and investigates why Republicans are deaf to that message. (The underline is mine.)
"Corporate chiefs in recent months have pleaded publicly with Republicans to raise their taxes for the sake of deficit reduction, and to raise the nation's debt limit without a fight lest another confrontation like that in 2011 wallop the economy. But the lobbying has been to no avail...
...'I'm agreeing with the president--you should not be using the debt limit as a bargaining chip when it comes to how you run the country,' said David M. Cote, chief executive of Honeywell, and a Republican. 'You don't put full faith and credit of the United States at risk.'
As a warning was issued Tuesday about a possible credit downgrade, even the hard-line conservative group Americans for Prosperity, financed by the billionaire Koch family, urged Republicans not to use the debt limit as a leverage for deep spending cuts....
...Some of the Republicans' distancing from big business is a matter of political tactics--to alter their image as the part of wealth and corporate power.
A news release e-mailed in late December from the office of Speaker John A. Boehner captured the changed dynamic. On a day when Mr. Obama met executives from the Business Roundtable, a group that for decades was close to Congressional Republicans, the subject line on the Boehner e-mail...read: 'GOP to Meet With Small Biz While (President) Meets With Big CEOs'."
The article goes on to explain how new Southern Republicans don't feel the connection to corporate America that older Northern Republicans feel. However, continuing to ignore what big business says in order to make a political point is not good politics...but then this is the party that thought Mitt Romney was a good choice.
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