Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, offered a helping hand to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama while in Denver on Tuesday.
“We will work with this president to help in any way we can to fix this economy and to keep us the strongest nation in the world,” Donohue said during a luncheon sponsored by Denver law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck at the Grand Hyatt Denver.
But he also warned of a barroom brawl if the new administration and Congress remove the right to secret ballots in union elections, limit international trade or impose other anti-business policies.
With a $200 million budget, 500 staff and 300,000 members, the chamber is the nation’s most powerful business group.
“We are in a recession, and we are in one that is rapidly moving in the wrong direction,” he said, citing forecasts of a 3 percent decline in the U.S. economy this quarter.
Although he urged the audience to remain calm and go out and spend, Donohue also called for stronger government action to save the auto industry, boost lending and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.
With General Motors teetering near bankruptcy and Ford not far behind, Donohue supports a government rescue for automakers, garnering criticism from free-market purists.
“Don’t tell me about philosophy,” he said. “If we let this thing go under, we are looking at millions and millions of unemployed people.”
On one key issue for the chamber, infrastructure development, Donohue expects a more open ear under an Obama administration than with the Bush administration.
The list of things that need to be built or rebuilt is long — roads, bridges, ports, the energy grid, high-speed data networks, he said.
“We will work with unions on infrastructure and health care,” he said. “We will fight them where they try to turn the country back 50 years.”
Other areas of focus for the chamber include education, immigration reform and energy policy, including making it easier to drill domestically.
Although Obama has made many promises to his supporters, Donohue urged him to rule from the center.
“Pick carefully what you are going to do. You have to do what is best for the country,” he said.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat and entrepreneur, said he appreciated that Donohue focused on cooperation between government and business.
“You can have the best intentions, but without resources, your hands are tied,” he said of the government’s ability to function without the tax revenues that economic growth generates.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
