The Assembly of Executives

On Wednesday President Obama will host a roundtable with about 20 corporate chiefs. Executives from many different industries are expected to come including American Express, Cisco Systems, Dow Chemical, Google, Motorola, Intel, UPS and PepsiCo. However the White House said it would not divulge attendees until the meeting. Mr. Obama and the executives will discuss a variety of issues such as deficit reduction, an overhaul of the tax code, government regulation, export promotion and public-private investments in areas like technology and clean energy, and efforts to improve education and job skills. The main concern being addressed is not competition between Democrats and Republicans but making sure we are preparing the next generation to compete globally. The partnerships the administration had developed early on were quickly frayed by differences over subsequent White House efforts, especially on overhauling the health insurance and financial regulatory systems and he hopes to repair some of them.

I think this roundtable of leaders and executives of important companies who have a huge impact on today’s economy and a societal impact, is very smart of President Obama. It is important that our government goes beyond just dealing with themselves and doing interior business. They need to stretch out to being involved with other agencies and companies and being acquainted with other outside influences. Our government is not the only power that has an effect on the lives of American citizens and it seems that President Obama realizes this. It is also a very intellectual move on his part because many of the partnerships he did have were severed and this meeting will hopefully allow him to ease strained relations with business and continue building on ones he still may have.