Daniel Gross thinks the business class is too ideologically deluded to know its own political interests.
More Democrats, the [Chamber of Commerce] fears, would mean “policies favoring increased unionization, higher taxes, more restrictions on trade and more regulation on the financial-services and housing sectors.” Once again, the past 16 years provide a great controlled experiment: eight years of a Democratic regime that was comparatively pro-labor, higher tax, pro-regulation, and anti-free trade, followed by eight years of a Republican regime that was comparatively anti-labor, decidedly low tax and anti-regulation, and pro-free trade. Pop quiz: For the members of the Chamber of Commerce, and for corporate America at large, which eight years were better? . . .
[O]ne wonders what conclusions [FedEx CEO Fred] Smith might draw from the past 16 years of running Federal Express. From 1993-2000, the president was a guy he disagreed with on trade, taxes, energy and health care in office, and from 2001-08 the president was a guy he agreed with on trade, taxes, energy and health care. How did that work out for a Federal Express shareholder?
Gross seems much more simplistic here than the businessmen he is lecturing. It’s not as though there’s no evidence that Obama is to Clinton’s left on trade, or that Obama might be able to take the Left’s labor-law agenda a lot further than Clinton did.