When congressional Republicans (Coverdell, Gingrich, Armey, DeLay, Boehner) met privately with the leaders of the Business Roundtable on January 9, the plan was to discuss the 1997 agenda after quickly putting to rest the bad blood over campaign donations. Republicans have long complained that corporate America's flagship organization "will not fight to reelect members of Congress who advocate and vote for free enterprise," as outgoing party chairman Haley Barbour put it just after the elections last November.
Well, they never did manage to talk about Agenda '97. Instead, the Republican leaders, joined by Barbour, persisted in their criticism that the bigwigs give too much to congressional Democrats, who hate the business community and, being out of power, can't help anyway. And why, they also asked, is the Roundtable staff loaded with Democrats who play footsie with the Clinton White House? And why did the Roundtable water down TV ads last year touting a balanced budget? And why did the Roundtable take its name off the letterhead of the business coalition that responded to the AFL-CIO offensive against the GOP?
So many questions, so few answers. After two hours, the business types simply ended the meeting and rushed to their corporate jets to beat the 10 p. m. curfew at National Airport.