Harold McGraw III, chairman of the Business Roundtable, called on Congress on Thursday to pass trade agreements with Vietnam and Peru and approve a permanent research and development tax credit in the remaining weeks of the Republican-controlled session.
Speaking before a group of MBA students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, McGraw urged Congress to pass both permanent trading relations status for Vietnam and enact the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.
“The United States must do more to open our markets to the world,” said McGraw, who is also president and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies.
The Business Roundtable, which represents the CEOs from the country’s biggest corporations, has been vocal in the past in lobbying for free trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement.
McGraw laid out the association’s legislative agenda for the new Democrat-led Congress. The focus will be on American competitiveness with an emphasis on issues such as a push for the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, raising the number of visas given out to educated foreign workers wanting to come into the country and additional funding for math and science programs in elementary, middle and high schools.
Democrats will likely address business issues in their first session, such as corporate responsibility and minimum wage, said Jeffrey Lenn, professor of strategic management and public policy at George Washington University’s School of Business. But it remains to be seen if the shift in the balance of power will benefit the Roundtable’s agenda, he said, since the war in Iraq and other hot button issues are likely to take center stage initially.
The fact that the Democrats took over Congress only two years before a presidential election may actually prevent serious progress from being made, he said.
“There are just an awful lot of questions,” Lenn said. “The fact that both houses are controlled by one party, if it were with four years left that would be one thing, but with only two years left and an incumbent president going out, the focus is going to be on 2008.”
