Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.ibd From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: \TITLE Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 12:51:16 EST Message-ID: <6.1992Nov18.125116@AmeriCast.com> 11/18/92 TITLE #m#gm#m##m#tlj/wm#m#Business Ponders Life With The Demo- crats Chamber Of Commerce 'Cautiously Optimistic' About Clinton John Merline In Washington Business leaders view the incoming Clinton administration with cautious optimism, according to officials at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "We're quite optimistic that we will have an opportunity to work with the new president to promote a pro-growth package that will get the economy going once again," said Lawrence Hunter, chief economist at the chamber, whose membership roster includes more than 215,000 companies. "This is a president-elect and a Demo- crat from a philosophical point of view who is not knee-jerk ad- versarial to business," said William Archey, the chamber's senior vice president for policy and congressional affairs. "The gen- eral view of the business community in Arkansas was that (Clin- ton) was an accessible governor who was extremely sophisticated about business issues and who gave them a hearing," Archey said. However, Hunter and the other chamber officials present at yesterday's press conference expressed concern about some of the policies Clinton has proposed. "The business community is going to have to be at the table, and we're going to have to negotiate hard to come to an agreement we can all support," Hunter said. "Left to their own devices, the (new administration) will likely produce an inadequate (economic growth) package." The chamber supports several measures proposed by Clinton - such as his plan to reduce health insurance costs to small business, elevate economic concerns in foreign policy and open up trade through ac- cords such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the GATT. The business organization also favors Clinton's proposals for defense conversion, infrastructure investment, investment tax credits and other tax relief designed to help businesses. There are, however, several points of contention in the Clinton plan. Among these are his plans to cap national health-care spending, impose employer mandates to cover family leave and health care, ban striker replacement and repeal right-to-work laws, and index the minimum wage. Even in areas of agreement, the chamber offi- cials sweated the details of some Clinton proposals. Worker re- training, for example, is a Business Ponders Life With The Democrats laudable goal, according to Jeffrey Joseph, vice president for domestic policy, but its success depends on how such a program is administered. The chamber favors tax incentives to encourage businesses to train workers, similar to the tax incentives Clinton has proposed for investment in plants and equipment. Mandating that businesses spend a fixed amount on training has potentially seri- ous drawbacks, Joseph said, such as defining what constitutes training and what counts as spending on training. "We don't want to have the 'training police' going around trying to audit everyone's books. That has the potential of being a real nightmare," Joseph said. Broad-Based Incentives Backed Hunter said that tax incentives are a good idea, but only if they are broadly based. Clinton supports targeted tax relief for investments in plant and equipment and new businesses. Highly targeted tax breaks, Hunter said, "could easily turn into a tool of industrial policy." The spokespeople also complained about Clinton's plan to collect more taxes on foreign companies that do business in the U.S. During his campaign, Clinton pledged to "crack down" on foreign com- panies that "prosper here and manipulate tax laws to their advan- tage." He claimed that he could raise $45 billion over four years in this manner, a figure that most economists say is overly op- timistic. In addition, the chamber officials said that such a policy could backfire if foreign countries retaliate by raising taxes on U.S. companies operating abroad. In the health-care arena, for example, "there is a lot of common ground," said Joseph, citing such Clinton proposals as Bill Clinton small-business insurance pools to lower insurance costs and medical-practice parameters to help ease malpractice costs. But he disagrees with mandates for employers to provide health-care coverage and with Clinton's plan to impose "global budgets" on national health-care expenditures. Joseph also criticized Clinton's argument that new health-care initiatives could be paid for with the savings Clinton expects from his program. "Of the 'savings' expected to help fund the government program, over half would accrue to the private sector, not the govern- ment," Joseph said. Hope For Long-Sought Reforms On a positive note, however, the officials appeared optimistic about getting reform measures passed that languished during Republican control of the White Hosue. For example, the offi- cials said both liability reform and a balanced budget amendment might be passed under a Clinton administration. "Some of these long-sought reforms may, in fact, have a greater chance of passage now than when we had divided government," Joseph said. This article is copyright 1992 Investors Business Daily. 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