GOP takes tax overhaul show to CEOs
Republicans aren’t about to let go of their selfproclaimed title as the party of big business.
When dozens of America’s most visible chief executives said last week that they’d break up two groups advising President Donald Trump after his slow condemnation of violence at a white-supremacist rally, they opened the widest rift between a Republican president and corporations in generations.
But even as Trump suggested Tuesday that executives are now speaking to him privately “instead of through a council,” CEOs aren’t being shy about embracing other Republicans. Top lawmakers are making the rounds to companies to rally support for a tax overhaul that could sharply reduce corporate rates — and burnish the GOP’s pro-business bona fides.
House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday visited Intel Corp., whose chief was one of the first to depart a White House manufacturing council amid last week’s turmoil. On Thursday, Ryan spoke to workers at aerospace giant Boeing Co., a previous target of Trump’s ire whose CEO also had a seat on the manufacturing panel.
Boeing in particular faces a delicate dance with Trump and congressional Republicans. The largest U.S. exporter and secondbiggest U.S. defense contractor would likely gain from a tax overhaul and other elements agenda.
At the same time, Boeing is waiting to close nearly $20 billion in commercial jet orders to Iran, which Trump has accused of not holding up its end of a nuclear accord struck under the Obama administration. The company also wants the U.S. Export-Import Bank reinstated to full authority to help finance jet purchases for customers unable to tap conventional credit markets. Ryan, before he became speaker, had derided the Ex-Im bank as corporate welfare.
Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg didn’t join his fellow CEOs in taking a public stand against the president last week. Instead, Boeing issued a statement of support for the “purpose and mission” of the manufacturing council as well as “equality and respect for all people.”
Boeing has emerged as a symbol of American manufacturing might this year — of Republicans’ even while cutting nearly 7,000 jobs. Its stock has led the Dow Jones industrial average, posting a 53 percent gain this year through Wednesday’s close that trounces the likes of Apple and Microsoft. Trump showed up at a Boeing plant in South Carolina to hail the public debut of the newest 787 Dreamliner, a marquee jet, in February.
Ryan took questions from Boeing employees during a town hall staged in front of the original 787 line in Everett, Wash. The event was scheduled at his request before the Charlottesville controversy. “He wanted to visit and we’re accommodating him,” said Paul Bergman, a Boeing spokesman.
Ryan said reducing the tax rate for businesses and simplifying the tax code for individuals will spur economic growth.
Other top Republicans have also called on business leaders in recent days. On Tuesday, Kevin Brady, RTexas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, visited United Parcel Service CEO David Abney. On Wednesday, Brady appeared at an AT&T employee town hall where CEO Randall Stephenson backed tax overhaul.
“Major companies might dislike what the president says on occasion, but find much to like in his probusiness agenda,” said John Feehery, a longtime Republican lobbyist and partner at EFB Advocacy, whose clients include Sprint and the National Immigration Law Center.
At Intel, Ryan spoke in private with a handful of executives including Chairman Andy Bryant about the tax overhaul, and gave public remarks to about 50 employees stressing the need to cut the corporate tax rate and eliminate loopholes.
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