the national interest

Business Lobbyist: Interests of CEOs and Workers ‘Completely Aligned’ on Trump Tax Cuts

Photo: Ralph Morse/Getty Images/The LIFE Picture Collection

Donald Trump ran on, and then re-endorsed in outline form, a plan to dramatically shift the incidence of federal taxation away from the very rich and onto the middle class. Republicans in Congress have fought for this same principle for years, and are developing a plan together based on this shared principle.

Joshua Bolten, president of the Business Roundtable, is very optimistic about the process. In an interview with John Harwood, Bolten swats away concerns that the plan might, perhaps, tilt a bit in favor of the kinds of very wealthy people who are designing it:

HARWOOD: Goldman Sachs talent is a big part of this process. Is that evidence that what comes out of this process will not be good for average people and is something that is going to perpetuate income inequality?
BOLTEN: I don’t think so. All of the CEOs in the Business Roundtable, they’re fine. They make a lot of money. Probably like to make more — but they don’t actually need more money. And they’re pushing for tax reform not because they want to more money. They’re pushing for tax reform because they’re worried about the competitiveness of U.S. companies. They’re worried about their ability to invest capital and create more good jobs here in the United States.
So the fact that you’ve got, you know, investment bankers working on this, or you’ve got CEOs behind corporate tax reform — their interests are now aligned, completely aligned, with the average worker who they want to employ. They want to pay him more.

That is a huge relief. I was concerned that the CEOs behind this plan might have interests that diverged somewhat from that of the general public. But now that we know that the interests of workers are completely aligned with those of capital, it’s a little odd that the representatives of those workers don’t seem to have much of a role in designing this plan. Why aren’t the union leaders elected by workers sitting at the table, too? Their interests are aligned, after all.

Business Lobbyist: CEOs, Workers ‘Completely Aligned’