Great Expectations
Industry leaders hope Bush attends to their special needs
Hunting season is now open on Capitol Hill. With a new president and a new Congress safely installed, Washington business lobbyists are locked and loaded, aiming to bag big favors for the companies they represent. President George W. Bush, whose record campaign war chest and inaugural festivities owed much to corporate contributors, has told business interests not to expect special treatment just because of their backing. But Bush's watchword is bipartisan legislation. And nothing can get two-party juices flowing faster than the prospect of adding business-pleasing tax breaks and benefits to the massive tax-cut and spending bills that are slated for high priority in Congress.
Although the $1.6 trillion 10-year tax cut that Bush campaigned on offered little in direct benefits for business, lobbyists wasted no time in pressuring his transition team to sweeten the measure with such tidy benefits as a more rapid write-off of corporate investments (box, Page 38). Defense and technology companies will be elbowing for their share of stepped-up Pentagon spending. Still others will be seeking regulatory relief or expansion of federal aid. While a broad coalition of industries is seeking access, three sectors--technology, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals--have special claims on the new administration.
High tech mostly wants to be left alone
At first blush, it doesn't seem the Bush administration is likely to "get" the Internet and its role in the much vaunted new economy. After all, top levels of the new regime are inhabited by gray-haired officials who cut their teeth on Big Oil, Big Metal, Big Pharma, and other more traditional industries.
But technology leaders who huddled with Bush last month in Austin came away upbeat. They got hints of relief from what they regard as the too-aggressive regulation and enforcement of the Clinton era. For instance, the government's antitrust case against Microsoft could be allowed to run out of gas if the U.S. Court of Appeals rules in Microsoft's favor as expected in February or March. And the kind of grueling, yearlong regulatory review that bedeviled America Online's purchase of Time Warner would be much less likely, tech leaders believe. The CEOs also are pressing for second-tier appointments who would function as industry contacts and provide something that's still missing--expertise in trading with Japan and China.
Buttoned-down influence. More important, about 20 technology executives, many with Republican sympathies, are emerging as a kind of kitchen cabinet that will have direct access to the president and be able to shape tech policy. "George W. is a good listener," says John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco Systems, who supported Bush. "Philosophically, Bush will be less intrusive, less micromanaging [than Gore]," says Scott Cleland, chief executive of the Precursor research group in Washington, D.C. Other Austin attendees likely to exert influence in a Bush regime are Craig Barrett of Intel (which faced an antitrust investigation from the Clintonites); Michael Dell of Austin-based Dell Computer; Jim Barksdale, former chief of Netscape; Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard; and Lou Gerstner of IBM and AOL's Steve Case, a significant last-minute addition to the confab. When they met with Bush and his buttoned-down advisers, most even abandoned their dot-com casuals and knotted on neckties.
advertisement
