Notwithstanding all the fireworks on Capitol Hill surrounding Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft and other controversial nominees, President Bush is on the way to putting a new administration in place.
And then what?
Well, there’s the 10-year, $1.3 trillion tax-cut that is the centerpiece of the Bush agenda. Wireless and other high-tech executives, accustomed until recently to stratospheric stock prices but otherwise blind to the big picture, can be counted on to support Dubya’s economic plan.
You can’t really blame them, especially the wireless guys. What they wouldn’t give to get their hands on a fresh supply of money, with third-generation mobile-phone auctions and network buildout on the horizon.
Still, there is a certain naivete and self-deception among corporate digerati. Others might call it arrogance, greed, perhaps even incompetence.
High-paid tech execs believe, despite tangible indications of an economic slowdown, they-the Chosen Ones-would be spared. The New Economy is different, better, even impervious to economic cycles, they apparently think.
“Frankly, it was like somebody turned the lights out,” Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina told a reporter in Austin, where Bush privately met with high-tech execs recently. Orders for HP and Gateway products were down last month; it wasn’t a Merry Christmas after all.
Consumer confidence, which is waning, does not exist in a vacuum. There is a political component to it. Having lost the popular vote and having to work with a Congress barely in GOP hands, I wonder how much confidence Wall Street and Main Street will have in President Bush’s ability to manage domestic and foreign affairs. Could he wrestle the country out of a recession, if he had to?
Though derided for character flaws and his policies, Bill Clinton had the business community behind him for eight years.
While Bush has surrounded himself with able public servants, there seems to be a sense of underlying uneasiness about his ability to lead. Will this be a CEO in the White House who manages even as he is managed daily (hourly?) by avuncular aides?
Lack of confidence in the economy and in new political leadership could easily undermine the Bush presidency in its infancy. The repercussions would be felt widely, especially in a wireless industry that will need a healthy economy to support the roll out of 3G mobile-phone systems that executives are betting billions on today.
It’s a massive business gamble with political implications that are anything but inconsequential for Bush and others. Let’s hope and pray he’s up to it.
