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President Obama urged American businesses on Monday to “get in the game” by letting loose trillions of dollars being held in reserves, saying that they can help create a “virtuous cycle” of more sales, higher demand and greater profits that will put people back to work and turn around the sluggish economy.

“If there is a reason you don’t believe that this is the time to get off the sidelines — to hire and invest — I want to know about it. I want to fix it,” Mr. Obama said in a speech to business leaders at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In the speech, Mr. Obama pledged to eliminate unneeded regulations and simplify the tax code, but said companies had responsibilities to help the economy recover.

“Ultimately, winning the future is not just about what the government can do to help you succeed,” he said. “It’s about what you can do to help America succeed.”

The president’s comments came as he sought to reassure the business community that he is not their adversary and to mend fences with their aggressive lobbying advocate in Washington.

“I’m here in the interest of being more neighborly,” Mr. Obama said, alluding to the contentious relationship he has had with the Chamber of Commerce over the past two years. “Maybe if we would have brought over a fruit cake when I first moved in, we would have gotten off on a better foot. But I’m going to make it up.”

The chamber has fiercely opposed most of Mr. Obama’s health care and banking agenda and spent more than $50 million during last year’s midterm elections to cast the president and his party as antibusiness and a threat to capitalism.

But the chamber, too, is eager to tone down the rhetoric, according to senior officials there. At the height of the high-profile fight with the White House, several big-name companies left its board, citing concern about the chamber’s opposition to the administration’s efforts.

In introducing Mr. Obama, Thomas J. Donohue, the Chamber of Commerce’s president, emphasized his group’s desire to work with the administration in areas where they might agree. Those include increasing free trade and exports, investing in technology and infrastructure and reducing the nation’s debt.

“I reaffirm the American business community’s absolute commitment to working with you and your administration to advancing our shared priorities,” Mr. Donohue said. “Our focus is finding a common ground to advancing America’s greatness.”

In his remarks, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Donohue for joining Richard L. Trumka, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, in helping to lobby Congress to invest in infrastructure and technology that the president announced in his State of the Union address last month.

“Tom Donohue and Richard Trumka are not Facebook friends,” Mr. Obama joked. “Maybe you are. I didn’t check on this. But they agree on the need to build a 21st-century infrastructure.”

And yet the détente is likely to reach only so far.

Mr. Donohue has warned of a “regulatory tsunami” that will result from Mr. Obama’s policies. In particular, he told reporters after the November elections last year that the health care law would produce hundreds of new burdens on American businesses.

“We cannot allow this nation to move from a government of the people to a government of the regulators,” Mr. Donohue said at the time. “Regulation is the vehicle by which some seek to control our economy, our businesses and our lives — and left unchecked, it will fundamentally weaken our nation’s capacity to create jobs and opportunity.”

And while Mr. Obama has initiated a review to determine whether there are unneeded regulations, he is standing by his health care law and insists he is not shifting his politics to the middle.

In an interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly on Sunday, Mr. Obama said: “I’m the same guy. My practical focus, my common-sense focus right now is how do we out-innovate, out-educate, out-build, out-compete the rest of the world? How do we create jobs here in the United States of America? How do we make sure that businesses are thriving?”

That rhetoric — and Mr. Obama’s decision to address the chamber in the first place — has riled some liberal groups, who accused the president on Monday of consorting with the very forces they believe have worked to undercut his policies.

“Two weeks ago, the president promised that he would work to rebuild people’s faith in government,” said Erica Payne, the founder of the Agenda Project, a liberal organization in New York. “Meeting with the biggest lobbyists in the country is hardly a step in the right direction.”

But the White House has clearly made the decision that it needs to improve its relationship with the business community, even if that angers some of his core supporters. Several members of Mr. Obama’s administration, including Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, attended the event on Monday, along with his new chief of staff, William M. Daley, and Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser.

Mr. Obama pledged to “go anywhere” in the world to promote trade, a line that prompted one of the few moments of applause from the crowd of business leaders.

Mr. Obama’s suggestion that businesses can help the economy recover by spending their reserves was met with skepticism by some in the audience. Harold Jackson, a executive at Buffalo Supply Incorporated, a medical supply company, called it naive.

“Any business person has to look at the demand to their company for their product and services, and make hiring decisions,” Mr. Jackson said. “I think it’s a little outside the bounds to suggest that if we hire people we don’t need, there will be more demand.”

Matthew Shay, president of the National Retail Federation, called Mr. Obama’s tone “a positive one” and said he hoped that the improving economy would encourage more businesses in his industry to began expanding.

“The retail industry sees some real opportunities for investment this year,” Mr. Shay said after the president’s speech. “I think the things the president said today are certainly more reassuring than anything we’ve heard the last two years.”

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 7, 2011

An earlier version misstated the name of the Agenda Project and incorrectly reported that Gary Locke, the commerce secretary was in attendance.

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February 02

Mitt Romney presented David Letterman’s Top 10 list and Michael Steele appeared on “The Daily Show” with a puppet.

February 02

Rand Paul of Kentucky gave his first speech on the floor of his new legislative home, the United States Senate.

February 02

Nearly all of the big issues that will form the core of the 2012 presidential campaign were in play on Tuesday.

February 02

For the Obama administration, the diplomatic dance over Egypt has only begun.

February 01

The United States president said in a short speech Tuesday night that that an “orderly transition” in Egypt “must begin now,” just hours after Egypt’s leader, Hosni Mubarak, said he would not run for re-election.

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This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

February 02

Mitt Romney presented David Letterman’s Top 10 list and Michael Steele appeared on “The Daily Show” with a puppet.

February 02

Rand Paul of Kentucky gave his first speech on the floor of his new legislative home, the United States Senate.

February 02

Nearly all of the big issues that will form the core of the 2012 presidential campaign were in play on Tuesday.

February 02

For the Obama administration, the diplomatic dance over Egypt has only begun.

February 01

The United States president said in a short speech Tuesday night that that an “orderly transition” in Egypt “must begin now,” just hours after Egypt’s leader, Hosni Mubarak, said he would not run for re-election.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

February 02

Mitt Romney presented David Letterman’s Top 10 list and Michael Steele appeared on “The Daily Show” with a puppet.

February 02

Rand Paul of Kentucky gave his first speech on the floor of his new legislative home, the United States Senate.

February 02

Nearly all of the big issues that will form the core of the 2012 presidential campaign were in play on Tuesday.

February 02

For the Obama administration, the diplomatic dance over Egypt has only begun.

February 01

The United States president said in a short speech Tuesday night that that an “orderly transition” in Egypt “must begin now,” just hours after Egypt’s leader, Hosni Mubarak, said he would not run for re-election.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

With self assurance, eloquence and a soupçon of mild defiance, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky gave his first speech on the floor of his new legislative home Wednesday, noting that while he would be sitting at the desk of “the great compromiser,” Henry Clay, he would not be taking many cues from the 19th-century Kentucky lawmaker and founder of the Whig Party.

“Henry Clay’s life is at best a mixed message,” said Mr. Paul, who gained national attention during his successful Senate bid by calling for huge — and at the time controversial — cuts to federal spending in the spirit of the Tea Party movement. Mr. Clay, a slave owner, advocated in a complex manner, for the end to the practice, advocating that free slaves be sent back to Africa.

Mr. Paul, in a narrative leading toward his passion hammering away at federal spending, noted that Mr. Clay’s cousin, Cassius Clay, was an “unapologetic abolitionist” who stood with greater moral authority on the matter. “Is compromise the noble position?” Mr. Rand pondered during his remarks. “Is compromise a sign of enlightenment?”

While Mr. Paul noted that the argument over the national debt was not the moral equivalency of the slavery issue that divided the nation, he said: “Many ask, ‘Will the Tea party compromise?’ The answer is of course there must be dialogue and ultimately compromise.”

He added, “The compromise that we as conservatives must acknowledge is that we can cut some money from the military,” which could come about if “liberals” would agree to make cuts in domestic spending.

“As long as I sit at Henry Clay’s desk I will remember his lifelong desire to forge agreement,” he said.

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According to Sarah Palin and other conservatives, President Obama does not recognize America’s greatness. Among his failings, they say, is a tendency to talk the country down, minimize its place in the world and underestimate its uniqueness.

The White House has largely ignored the accusation, which emerged in April of 2009, shortly after he took office.

But in his State of the Union address Tuesday, Mr. Obama appeared almost determined to prove how much he views America through a special lens. Again and again, the president urged a renewed sense of unity on behalf of a country that holds a special place in global history.

He called America, “not just a place on a map, but the light to the world” and said its common bonds as a people — the shared dreams “of a little girl in Tucson” — is, ultimately, “what sets us apart as a nation.”

America, he said, is “the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea — the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny.” He added that “America’s moral example must always shine for all who yearn for freedom and justice and dignity.”

Such declarations are unlikely to persuade his critics in the Tea Party and elsewhere — in particular Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska and a potential rival to Mr. Obama in 2012.

She and other conservatives point to Mr. Obama’s answer to a reporter’s question during his first trip abroad as president. He was asked whether he believed in “American exceptionalism,” and while he said that he did, Mr. Obama’s answer has provided the ammunition for nearly two years of doubt.

“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world.”

The president went on for seven more very long sentences in which he repeatedly said he did not see any contradiction between his belief that America has “got a whole lot to offer the world” and his recognition that the country sometimes falters, or trails other nations in having good ideas.

“And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone,” he said.

The answer was an attempt by a new, young president to begin articulating his view of foreign policy and his belief in the power of engagement, rather than what came to be called “cowboy diplomacy” under his predecessor.

But it helped to rekindle the questions about Mr. Obama that have percolated since early in the 2008 campaign. Questions about Mr. Obama’s true political identity — his “otherness” — that his critics have kept alive since his arrival on the national scene.

Now, his response in London has been boiled down into just its first sentence, primarily by Ms. Palin, who condemned Mr. Obama for his answer in her latest book.

“Astonishingly, President Obama even said that he believes in American exceptionalism in the same way ‘the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.’ Which is to say, he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism at all,” she writes in “America by Heart.” “He seems to think it is just a kind of irrational prejudice in favor of our way of life. To me, that is appalling.”

She goes on to yearn for leaders who “are not embarrassed by America, who see our country’s flaws but also its greatness.” There is no doubt whom she is talking about.

On another occasion, Ms. Palin wrote on her Facebook page that Mr. Obama is not comfortable with a dominant American military. “Could it be a lack of faith in American exceptionalism?” she asks. “The fact is that America and our allies are safer when we are a dominant military superpower — whether President Obama likes it or not.”

Ms. Palin’s critique has been expanded upon by members of the Tea Party movement, who often use the accusation as evidence that Mr. Obama has “allegiances” to other nations because he sees America as, fundamentally, no better.

In an article titled, “American Values and Exceptionalism: Obama Style,” on the Web site of the Tea Party Patriots, Jimmy Minnish accuses the president of being an apologist for America’s flaws to the rest of the world.

“Barack Obama’s background includes being a citizen of other countries, that he is not comfortable with American exceptionalism,” Mr. Minish writes. “And as such Barack Obama has some consternation with recognizing that American is better than other nations or that we are lucky to be Americans.”

And on Tuesday night, both of the Republicans who responded to Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address made indirect references to the accusation.

“These are not easy times, but America is an exceptional nation,” said Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Budget Committee in the House.

And Representative Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, who gave her own, Tea Party-backed response, noted sharply that “we believe in lower taxes, a limited view of government and the exceptionalism of America. And I believe America is the indispensable nation.”

If Mr. Obama is frustrated by the accusation, he did not show it Tuesday night. But he repeatedly made clear — without using the phrase — his views of America’s place on the world stage .

“As contentious and frustrating and messy as our democracy can sometimes be, I know there isn’t a person here who would trade places with any other nation on Earth,” Mr. Obama said. “The idea of America endures. Our destiny remains our choice.”

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