Carl Guardino usually comes across as an amenable, mild-mannered Silicon Valley executive. But not on Monday. Not when he watched President Obama promising to end overseas tax breaks for U.S. companies that “create a job in Bangalore, India, (rather than) one in Buffalo, N.Y.” Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, angrily described Obama’s language as “not only discouraging, but divisive.” The president’s implication that companies such as Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard merely “ship jobs overseas,” and are being rewarded in the bargain, came as a shock to Guardino, who otherwise described the president as “brilliant and respected by so many in the tech sector who are counting on the administration as their ally.”
That’s the message Guardino and his 50-strong delegation of Silicon Valley executives – who just happen to be in Washington, D.C. – will be taking to their hometown representatives today. How much joy they get remains to be seen. In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she “welcome(s) the strong initiative outlined by President Obama that will restore fairness to the tax code by closing international tax loopholes.” Pelosi said, “I look forward to working with the president and members of Congress to advance these proposals and close these loopholes.”
Bummer. Sucks when you find out your not immune to the class warfare and economic policies of the Obama Administration. Sucks even more when you voted for it because you liked how it looked on everyone else but you.
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