19 Oct 2010 Big Business Look Out! Liberal CEOs are the Next Target for Tea Party Activists, says National Center for Public Policy Research

Experts at the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project and Project 21 say the cover story of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, “Why Business Doesn’t Trust the Tea Party,” explains why big business should be wary of the Tea Party movement.

“Progressive CEOs who embrace inherently anti-capitalist policies are making an enemy of grassroots conservatives and anyone who opposes higher taxes. Businesses should be wary of the Tea Parties, but they brought it on themselves,” said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., Director of the Free Enterprise Project. “When CEOs seek short-term profits and political perks by embracing anti-free market policies such as cap-and-trade and ObamaCare, they must realize that they are going to anger proponents of smaller government.”

In the Bloomberg Businessweek article, writers Lisa Lerer and John McCormick say: “The Tea Party’s brand of political nitroglycerin, in short, is too unstable for businesses that look to government for predictability, moderation and the creation of a stable economic environment.”

John Castellani, the new head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) trade association, told Bloomberg Businessweek, “A lot of the agenda is being driven by the extremes.” Castellani added, “This kind of extremism makes it much harder to plan from a business perspective.”

“Castellani knows the pharmaceutical industry is responsible for ObamaCare, which has unleashed tremendous uncertainty into the economic environment. ‘We the People’ say it was extreme for ‘big Pharma’ to carve out their special interest with President Obama and then stick Americans with the bill. Progressive CEOs will find out there’s going to be a price to pay when they seek laws that loot us of our liberty,” said Deneen Borelli, full-time fellow with the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network.

The article specifically mentioned the Free Enterprise Project’s demand for General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt’s resignation due to his lobbying for economically risky Obama Administration initiatives and simultaneously running the MSNBC news network. The petition can be found at http://www.bigbusinesswatch.com.

“When businessmen sell out free enterprise, the Tea Party is going to call them on it,” added Tom Borelli. “It’s not radicalism and it’s not revolution. If anything, it’s a market correction — thanks to the Tea Party.”

The National Center For Public Policy Research is a conservative, free-market non-profit think-tank established in 1982. It is supported by the voluntary gifts of over 100,000 individual recent supporters, and receives less than one percent of its revenue from corporate sources.