[Peace-discuss] "Centrist" & EFCA, etc.

[C. G. Estabrook]

    Next Administration Shows Signs It Will Seek
    Middle Ground With Business on Thorny Issues
    By Elizabeth Williamson
    The Wall Street Journal
    November 6, 2008

Washington -- The weak economy, congressional races that empowered 
moderates and President-elect Barack Obama's choice of business-friendly 
advisers suggest Democrats will go slow on controversial labor and 
regulatory issues.

A bill that would make it easier for unions to organize workers, efforts 
to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, and a slew of contemplated taxes 
will likely take a back seat to broader economic issues for now, 
Democratic operatives say.

"This administration from what I'm seeing is going to be very 
mainstream, middle of the road on tax and business policies," said Scott 
Lilly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, 
a think tank close to the Obama transition. "I believe most businesses 
are going to find it pretty moderate ... they're trying to convey that."

Later this month, Congress is expected to start crafting an 
economic-stimulus bill, which has the qualified support of the Bush 
administration, depending on what it includes. Beyond a likely extension 
of unemployment benefits and more rebate checks for Americans, the bill 
could include money to work through a backlog of state and local 
infrastructure projects, a potential boon for the construction industry.

Some Democrats say the bill could include incentives for 
alternative-energy initiatives. But anything more controversial -- such 
as a provision allowing bankruptcy judges to lower mortgage payments for 
homeowners -- likely won't be included.

That proposal and measures making it easier for people facing bankruptcy 
to gain protection from creditors are favored by many Democrats, 
including Mr. Obama. But such proposals could be difficult to pass in 
their current form without a protracted fight that could tarnish the new 
administration.

"At a time when we have real questions about the availability of credit, 
if you change the rules you are going to hurt the availability of 
credit," said Edward Yingling, president and chief executive of the 
American Bankers Association.

Though Democrats made significant gains in Congress, they fell short of 
the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate. Several newly 
Democratic seats in the House -- including ones in Florida, Idaho, New 
Mexico and Alabama -- went to fiscal conservatives with pro-business 
agendas.

Several of Mr. Obama's top economic advisers -- including former Federal 
Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, billionaire investor Warren Buffett and 
former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin -- are moderates and reassuring 
figures to the business community.

Groups including the Nuclear Energy Institute and the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce rushed to offer help to Mr. Obama Wednesday. At a news 
conference, the National Association of Manufacturers distributed a 
booklet titled "A Letter to President-elect Obama" pledging to work with 
Democrats on a host of business issues.

But National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler, the 
Republican former governor of Michigan, drew a line in the sand at any 
effort to implement the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it 
easier to unionize workers. "This is not the time and this is certainly 
not the issue with which to build a relationship," he said.

Democrats hold little sympathy with the business lobby's stance on 
unions, promising a fight down the road. "If we go back to what we did 
for most of the last half of the 20th century and divide production 
growth between corporations and employees, everyone would be better 
off," Mr. Lilly said.

Mr. Engler said his group would fight any effort by an Obama 
Environmental Protection Agency to regulate as a pollutant 
carbon-dioxide emissions from power and other industries.

The Chamber of Commerce extended an olive branch to Mr. Obama Wednesday 
in a letter from President and CEO Thomas Donohue. "Any successful and 
sustainable recovery must involve the business community," he wrote. 
"The Chamber stands ready to work with you and your administration to 
spur a return to prosperity."

The Chamber earned the ire of Senate Democrats with an expensive 
nationwide effort to prevent Democrats from gaining the 60 seats they 
needed to fully control the Senate.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122592124080902543.html