What would the CEOs do?

The Daily Beast interviewed 14 people who attended the White House jobs summit last week. Of those, three run their own businesses. One CEO, who runs a solar company, asked for more government welfare to promote her particular industry. Another, the head of a website design firm, spoke fondly of tax credits and the need to get health care premiums under control (competition and the free market anyone?). Then there was Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx:

I urged the President to accelerate the expensing of capital investment; reduce the corporate income tax rate; and champion free trade. As detailed by former Treasury officials Ernie Christian and Gary Robbins, every dollar of tax cuts for expensing adds about nine dollars of GDP growth. Allowing companies to expense more of their capital outlay is an inexpensive way to create jobs, because the only cost to the government is the time value of money. By cutting the corporate income tax rate, which at 35% is the second highest behind Japan, U.S. companies will have more money to invest in job creation. The President should also move forward with pending trade agreements with Columbia, Peru and the Republic of Korea—trade-related jobs account for one in five American jobs and they tend to be higher paying than other positions.

Nothing like this is on the agenda, and in the case of free trade momentum is actually running in the opposite direction.