If anyone had any question that the climate in Washington, D.C., has changed dramatically, the tone at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce’s congressional breakfast last Monday should settle the matter.
It’s not that U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy wasn’t already outspoken about health care and equality in education, or that U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin hadn’t pushed hard before for embryonic stem-cell research funding. And U.S. Sen. Jack Reed has always spoken out about Iraq.
But before, they often sounded like voices in the wilderness, and they knew it. Now, with Democrats in control of both the House and the Senate, they speak with authority. They boast of victories. Only with a few items do they worry about vetoes.
The good news for Rhode Island business leaders is that to the extent that they and the state’s congressional delegation, including its newest member, Sen. Sheldon A. Whitehouse, share their priorities, this year they could see some real progress. The bad news is that those priorities don’t always match.
Take the Employee Free Choice Act, co-sponsored by Kennedy and Langevin, among others, which would change federal labor laws so that no secret ballot is needed to unionize a workplace – just signed union authorization cards from a majority of the workers.
Like many other business groups, the Chamber opposes the measure, said president Laurie White. The current system “works very well,” White said, “and we’re confident that it doesn’t allow for any kind of intimidation or threats” by union organizers.
Asked for his stance on the bill, however, Whitehouse said he supports it “enthusiastically,” adding that “the average CEO now makes more in a day than the average worker makes in a year” – 400 times as much – and the 300,000 wealthiest U.S. families now earn more than the 150 million least-wealthy families.
Given those inequalities, Whitehouse said, it’s important to support those trying to even the playing field, such as the labor movement, even while working to help businesses by making health care more affordable and promoting better trade policies.
Because of the format of the event – a moderator would ask a question, the panelist would respond, and then the next panelist would be asked a new question – statements such as Whitehouse’s went unanswered, and it was difficult to tell how the people in the audience felt about the views expressed.
But White said that for the Chamber, “there’s some relief that the gridlock is over, and there’s actually going to be some movement on issues like education reform.”
Another Chamber priority, White said, is ensuring that Rhode Island makes the most of the research and innovation in its universities.
“The idea is, what can we do to really accelerate the commercialization of this research and turn it into tax-paying businesses and jobs?” she said. Federal support is critical to keep that research going strong, and Chamber members are concerned about proposed cuts to important research funds.
On that point, Rhode Island’s congressional delegation clearly shares the Chamber’s priorities. Reed noted that while President Bush has proposed to boost funding for the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), he wants to cut funds for the National Institutes of Health’s Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program, which is also crucial for Rhode Island. For both, he said, “we have to do much more.”
Kennedy said federal science investments “have been absolutely anemic,” and he said congressional leaders are working hard to do better. The problem with that and many other budget priorities, he said, is that “we’re really held hostage by the enormous deficit spending that’s been done in recent years.”
Co-moderator Donna Cupelo, region president of Verizon Communications and chair of the Chamber’s federal affairs committee, noted that as a technology company, “Verizon is looking for the workers of the future,” but if current trends continue, by 2010 more than 90 percent of the world’s scientists will be living in Asia. What, she asked Reed, is Congress doing to help?
Reed said one key measure is the America Competes Act, which has been scheduled for floor action and would, among other things, support the creation of statewide science and engineering schools and open up research labs to provide summer training for teachers.
Both Kennedy and Langevin spoke about health care legislation they’re sponsoring – the latter to work toward universal coverage, the former to promote the use of electronic health records and the sharing of information to reduce waste and improve quality. Kennedy has been working for years to promote health care IT, and now there is widespread support for it.
Asked how the new Congress plans to deal with trade, Whitehouse said he has seen firsthand, as a former board member of Cranston Print Works, how “troubling” the trade imbalance is, and value-added taxes (VATs) in other countries are making it worse.
The trade deficit is the worst it’s ever been, Whitehouse added, and in global trade, “we’re engaged in a real race to the bottom,” with countries competing on the basis of how lax their environmental protections can be and how badly workers can be treated.
Rather than just focus on tariffs and such, Whitehouse said, “I believe that what we stand for as a country can make us more competitive.” If a country doesn’t respect a free press, for example, or property rights, “there should be consequences for that.”
