No Time for Crying in Our Soup

Some in the business community--indeed, many of our citizens--are worried about the future. They see America challenged like never before. They see the inability of our elected officials to tackle big problems. They see a loss of business support in Congress after the November elections.

 

So what should we do? We have choices. Regarding our ailing economy, we can choose to blame our foreign competitors for being smarter, faster, and more efficient than ever. But, we should really be pointing the finger at ourselves. We have saddled our economy with burdensome and costly regulations, failed to pass a national energy strategy, allowed our schools to fail our kids, let our infrastructure crumble, and given lawyers free reign to pursue frivolous lawsuits.

 

We could choose to cry in our soup. We could throw up our hands and say we'll never win a pro-business majority in Congress ... we'll never be able to compete with the likes of China and India ... we'll never have another “American Century.” But this country has never surrendered to defeatism, and we shouldn't start now.

 

There's another choice for the business community--we can marshal our resources, drive a positive agenda, and actually get something done. But we need a plan. The U.S. Chamber has one.

 

We have a competitiveness agenda designed to position America to compete and win in the 21st century. And we have a plan to implement it during what is sure to be a very tumultuous time leading up to, during, and immediately after the elections.

 

Between now and the elections, we'll continue to educate presidential and congressional candidates and the voters and put our issues at the center of the political debate. We're also going to work very hard to educate voters about their choices in congressional contests and judicial and attorney general races.

 

After the elections, we're going to be prepared to support good measures while vigorously opposing bad ones, keeping in mind that new governments come in with a head of steam and that their supporters expect payback.

 

What we can't afford to do is get out of the game or give into pessimism. Now, more than ever, we need to fight with all of our resources to win the public debate on key issues that will impact America's competitiveness, the prosperity of our workers, and our place in the world for decades to come. Business is the one thing in this country that really works. We must lead the way.