Priorities
Business leaders begin to weigh in
Jul 12 2011
More than 300 top U.S. business leaders today urged the White House and Congressional leaders to “put aside partisan differences” and agree to a bipartisan compromise that will “substantially reduce … long-term budget deficits.”
The letter was signed by the CEOs of Alcoa, Bayer, Caterpillar, Citigroup, Cisco, DuPont, International Paper, Proctor & Gamble and many others.
A week ago, Senator Warner wrote an op/ed for the Washington Post encouraging American business leaders to step-up and speak-out on these issues, and he’s reinforced the message in a series of interviews and public appearances in recent days:
“ … Failing to embrace a bold, comprehensive, bipartisan plan will wreck our economic recovery, kill jobs and place our country at a competitive disadvantage for decades. … Here is the truth: to regain fiscal health, we need a plan that cuts our debt by at least $4 trillion. It can achieve that only with spending cuts and greater revenue. We need to raise the debt ceiling and ignore irresponsible politicians who would let us default.”
Today’s CEO letter touched on those same themes:
“The resulting plan must be long-term, predictable and binding,” the CEOs said.
“It is time to pull together rather than pull apart.”