How Corporate America Feels About the Biden Stimulus Plan
The 2020 election was one of the most contentious political events in recent memory and perhaps in American History. The two parties are more divided than ever about the fate of the country and although tensions have cooled, the Biden Administration will undoubtedly face some criticism over anything they pass into law.
The most recent stimulus bill is no different and when it was first announced, many were divided over whether the economy needed another boost after a vaccine was already on the way. Many Republicans argued that the unneeded stimulus would overheat the economy and continue to run up an already bloated deficit.
Yet, despite these objections, the bill was officially passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package on March 11th, 2021, which provided another round of direct payments, unemployment benefits, tax credits, rental and utility assistance, and more.
Despite early objections that the stimulus would do more harm to the economy than good, many corporate CEOs backed the bill and claim that it’s exactly what the country needed to make the final push out of the pandemic. CEOs who backed the bill include David Solomon’s of Goldman Sachs, Stephen Schwartzman of Blackstone, Sundar Pichai of Google, and John Stankey of AT&T, among many others.
Declan Kelly, the CEO of the public relations and advisory company Teneo went on Bloomberg to announce that many corporate executives were optimistic about Biden’s stimulus plan. He argued that there is a discrepancy between the stock market and the real economy and that the stimulus would help fill in those gaps to get people back to work and off unemployment.
Founder Declan Kelly was a close associate of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and has been the CEO of the New York-based firm since it was founded in 2011. So, despite the claim of many that the stimulus plan would be detrimental to natural economic recovery, many prominent business leaders seem to disagree. Only time will tell if the bill pushes the country in a new direction or creates more problems down the road.
