Brown to business leaders: 'Washington has left you'

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Boston —

Sen. Scott Brown told business leaders Monday morning that elected officials in Washington were not focused on job creation, had passed several initiatives that will curb employment growth, and equated failing to extend Bush-era tax cuts to passing a tax increase.

During a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Brown sought to burnish his outsider credentials, hammering colleagues in Congress for acting on “fluff” legislation but declining to offer examples.

“My role has been trying to get them to work on those very issues that can get our economy moving again,” he said. “I believe Washington has been focused on the wrong things. Washington still is not listening … What do we talk about in Washington? Everything but jobs.”

Brown alleged that in his nine months on Capitol Hill, the Senate has spent 12 days focused on jobs legislation. “Are you kidding me? What does that tell you?” he said. “It tells me that Washington is not focused on the one thing that can get us going.”

Brown said Massachusetts fishermen are “being crippled” by Washington regulation and decried a medical device tax in the federal health care law that he said was wiping out profits for Massachusetts businesses and preventing hiring.

“Washington has left you,” he said. “They’ve left you, the job creators, in limbo.”

Brown’s message appeared to resonate with business officials assembled from companies like Fidelity, and Pfizer Inc., who had tables at the crowded event, held at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel and applauded his pledge to work with the business community. But his speech drew a rebuke from one state legislator, who said Brown displayed a “lack of understanding of government and where the spending is.”

“He’s throwing fluff at us when he’s decrying what’s going on in Washington as mostly fluff,” Rep. Thomas Conroy, who attended the speech, said in an unsolicited interview with the News Service. “His equation basically is, you lower taxes, you’re creating jobs. That has not been proven economically. It flies in the face of his touted deficit hawkishness. Any economist will tell you that if you lower taxes, the first thing you’re going to do is raise deficits. He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth.”

Conroy, a Wayland Democrat, challenged Brown to name areas of government spending he’d like to cut, and compared Brown to Carla Howell, the libertarian activist who led a ballot drive to slash the state sales tax in half. He said Brown’s view that businesses would create jobs with a lower tax burden contradicts actual activity in the business sector. He said some industries have been “generating huge profits” but that instead of creating jobs, they pay dividends to shareholders, buy new companies or buy their own stocks.

“Those are not job-creating activities,” he said.

O’Neill and Associates, MS&L and other local firms had seats at the breakfast as well.

Former US Attorney Michael Sullivan, Rep. Martin Walsh (D-Dorchester), and Rep.-Elect Daniel Winslow, Brown’s former legal counsel, attended the breakfast.

“I think that most people agree that Washington is broken. Partisan politics obviously have impacted the lack of laser-like focus on the economy and job creation,” Paul Guzzi, president of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, told the News Service. “I think everybody now, in hindsight, would agree that that’s true. The question now is, what are we going to do?”

Guzzi pointed to a $13 trillion national debt and 10 percent national unemployment as looming problems for Congress.

“How do we approach those twin challenges and how to we do it in a way that puts people back to work and at the same time reduces this incredible debt that is unsustainable?” he said.

Asked whether he supports extending the so-called Bush tax cuts, set to expire on Jan. 1, 2011, Brown said he supported extending the breaks for all income brackets, “By not extending them, it's a tax increase,” he said.

Asked whether he backed permanent or temporary extensions, Brown said, “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals ... If they expire, it’s an automatic tax increase for everybody in the country. In the middle of a two-year recession, it would be a job killer,” he said. “If you do let them expire, I think the hurt and the decline in job creation will be dramatic.”

Brown quickly exited the venue through a staff door at the back of the room, declining to take questions from reporters who had gathered to speak with him.

During his speech, Brown called for eliminating the capital gains tax on startup businesses and “streamlining siting and permitting” processes for all businesses.

“Why can China and India, from A to Z, start to finish, build a 500,000 square foot building in nine months?” he wondered, adding that American projects often “can’t get through the zoning board of appeals.”

Brown called for a freeze on federal government hiring and pay increases, a review to ensure contractors had fulfilled their obligations and a “top-to-bottom” review of all entitlement programs.

Asked by Guzzi about a recent federal debt commission report recommending a reduction in Social Security benefits, an increase in the retirement age, the elimination of federal earmarks and defense spending cuts, Brown said, “Everything should be on the table.”

The report, he said, “just came out.”

“We are tearing it apart right now,” he said, adding that he has a briefing on the findings scheduled in Washington later in the day.

Guzzi said Brown may be uniquely positioned to help Congress bridge a divide over the recommendations.

“How the recommendations of the deficit reduction panel are embraced, whether or not because the initial reaction is the left and the right are very upset, can somebody like Senator Brown, his position as an independent Republican, craft out some kind of middle ground?” Guzzi wondered.

The conversation also turned to Brown’s future when Guzzi asked him if he planned to run for president in 2012.

“Give me a break,” Brown said, joking that he’d challenge Guzzi for president of the chamber of commerce. “The time for running for election will be here in a year or so. You know who’s jobs I’m worried about? Yours … I’m running for reelection.”

Asked whether he’d consider challenging Brown, Conroy, a risk management consultant, said, “I haven’t given it much thought.”

http://www.wickedlocal.com/norwood/news/x1615406089/Brown-to-business-leaders-Washington-has-left-you