What Business Wants from Washington in 2023

Wednesday night, Suzanne Clark had dinner with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's board of directors, CEOs of major corporations.  There was, she told reporters the next day, despair about the ability of government to solve problems.  Government, she said, is doing many of the things they don't need to do, and not doing what only government can do, must do.

Her press conference followed the Chamber's annual State of American Business address at which Clark, the organization's president and CEO, lays out the major issues it sees facing business – especially the issues it want Congress to work on this year.

"What so many of you tell us is that the state of your own business is strong.  But the state of the economy is fragile.  And confidence in our government to do the right thing is low," she said.

"When a border crisis allows millions to cross illegally into our country, but we can’t get visas processed for engineers and nurses that businesses are desperate to hire and communities need—government isn’t working.

"When you’ve got the most significant new investment in infrastructure in a generation and businesses ready to build, but projects can’t get approved—government isn’t working.

"When energy policy is reduced to a false, binary choice between energy security and energy transition, one or the other—government isn’t working.

"When regulations are driven by ideological agendas and imposed on business without transparency, accountability, or clarity—government isn’t working.

"When Washington dysfunction allows foreign countries to write rules for the global economy that discriminate against American companies—government isn’t working.

"When indifference on trade not only limits our economic potential but threatens our geopolitical posture—government isn’t working.

"And when government itself is seen as a source of risk for businesses, it’s clearly not working," Clark said.  She said the Chamber looked at the annual risk risk disclosures by the S&P 500 in the last decade.  "Mentions of non-public policy risks were flat, mentions of government agencies and policies skyrocketed by 30%," she said.

Clark called on Congress to pass meaningful permitting reform so that the "historic investments in roads and bridges, public transit, clean drinking water," etc. envisioned by last years Infrastructure Act can be built.  Later, she told reporters the both West Virginia senators – Joe Manchin (D) and Shelley Moore Capito (R) – introduced bills to reform the permitting process.  "When you laid them side by side, there were few areas of disagreement," she said.

She called on Congress to "fix America's outrageously broken immigration system."  While record numbers cross the border illegally, legal migration has dropped to modern lows.  State and local chambers along the border "describe the humanitarian crisis gripping their towns with little or no help from the federal government."  Meanwhile, businesses say "they can't visas processed to hire the worker they needed yesterday."

Clark said permitting reform on energy projects is essential.  "Let’s accelerate permitting for new exploration and production, quickly finalize a 5-year program for offshore leasing, and make it easier to build energy infrastructure," she said.

The U.S. has to boost global trade.  And to be "strong and resolute" when it comes to China.  Finally, she called for lawmakers to allow arbitration, which she called "a faster, fairer way to resolve litigation and to limit the practice of third-party funding of litigation.