Holds business forum a year after floating ‘salons’
Some of the Washington area’s top business leaders at a Washington Post-sponsored roundtable on Tuesday registered optimism on their prospects for new hiring, ambivalence on President Obama’s handling of the economy and resentment of Congress’s retooling of health care.
During the forum — held a year after the newspaper proposed holding highly criticized “salons” — the audience of executives wielded handheld “perception analyzers” to punctuate a panel discussion featuring Virginia’s governor, a White House economist, a hotel chain chief executive officer and the Post’s economics columnist.
Dialing in their feelings on the recently passed health bill at the Tower Club in Tysons Corner, about two-thirds of the group indicated “worried” or “angry.” Only 7 percent said they were “enthusiastic,” and 26 percent “satisfied.” Asked to gauge their opinion on the president’s economic decision making, 81 percent had at least some confidence in Obama. And nearly 60 percent said they expected to expand their payroll.
The Washington Post last year drew fire for proposing private “salons” that promised access to journalists and policymakers at a price as high as $250,000. Tuesday’s “Business of the Beltway” forum was broadcast on the Internet and open to the press, although it charged attendees $175 each and was sponsored by several large companies, including Bank of America and Verizon.
The panelists themselves were just as split as the audience on the forecast for jobs, health care and economic recovery. Hilton Hotels CEO Christopher Nassetta said the health overhaul will be “adding very significantly to the cost of health care for a company like ours.” A supporter of universal health coverage, Nassetta said the legislation failed to address the underlying problem of reducing costs.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell attacked federal spending, citing expanding state Medicaid costs and calling the health law “a significant unfunded mandate.”
Asked by an audience member about the federal deficit, economist Austan Goolsbee, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, argued that the root cause of the deficit is found in the downturn. And he cautioned against drawing comparisons between federal and state spending — especially because states draw so much funding from Washington.
“Tax revenues collapsing, automatic stabilizers are going up, that’s what happens in every recession, and this was the worst recession since 1929.”
