>US Chamber CEO Warns Frustrated Voters Turning From CapitalismUS Chamber President and CEO Suzanne Clark, in laying out a big-sweep defense of capitalism and economic growth, warned voters’ frustration over rising costs has led some to seek socialist policies.
“We’d be really wrong to ignore the implications of those feelings, because what we’re seeing is voters who are really desperate for solutions,” Clark said during her annual State of American Business address on Thursday.
A “growing number of them are willing to consider alternatives to the status quo, willing to throw out capitalism and try something completely different,” she said at Chamber headquarters, located across Lafayette Square from the White House. Dozens of business executives — including JPMorganChase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon and Ross Perot, Jr., founder and chairman of Hillwood, were in attendance.
Dimon, in a separate conversation with David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, said uncertainty across the world was a top concern.
“The biggest unknown is geopolitics,” he said.
He also said the nickname for regulatory red tape ought to be blue tape: “The Democrats love that crap.”
Dimon said he favors one of the Chamber’s top policy priorities: overhauling federal permitting rules for infrastructure and other projects. The Chamber is leading an effort for legislation to speed the approval process for those projects.
Clark, in her remarks, did not offer specifics on the lobbying group’s plans for the midterm elections, and kept her focus on a larger vision for business and policy as being at a crossroads 250 years after the nation’s founding.
Pro-growth policies, she said, would embrace artificial intelligence technologies and to lead the world in “smartly regulating it.”
She also mentioned one of the group’s longstanding priorities of taking on trial lawyers, saying the Chamber aims to stop the trial bar, which she said drives up prices for American families. Her comments echo both parties that have increasingly prioritized affordability.
The annual address comes as the group has sought to regain its influence mojo and repair stained ties with Republicans in Trump’s second term, including with the hire ex-Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill), who joined in 2024 and set out remaking the chamber’s lobbying team.
Congressional Republicans and Trump officials have offered positive comments about Davis, though some in the GOP say they still are skeptical of the business lobby’s influence compared to previous years.
“When I was the coalition director for the House whip 20 years ago, getting the Chamber to key vote a bill meant a base of 213 Republicans would automatically vote yes,” said Sam Geduldig, CGCN Group’s managing partner. That was no longer the case as of last year, he said.
The Chamber appears to be making inroads with the most important Republican in DC, even if others remain skeptical. In the throes of debate over Republicans’ sweeping tax and spending measure, President Donald Trump shared an op-ed by Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s executive vice president, chief policy officer, and head of strategic advocacy.
Heading into next year’s elections, the Chamber plans to keep the focus on selling the tax cuts and talking about economic growth in congressional districts, Davis said in an interview last year with Bloomberg Government.
“Number one, we can’t quit talking about the success of the tax bill,” Davis said then.
https://news.bgov.com/bloomberg-government-news/us-chamber-ceo-warns-frustrated-voters-turning-from-capitalism