BUSINESS/RACISM/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Last Wednesday [8-23-17], even as top executives were abandoning President Trump’s business advisory councils after his remarks on white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va., other industry leaders were busy making their interests known to a business-friendly White House.
Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders, a trade group, traveled to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to meet with Mark Calabria, the chief economist to Vice President Mike Pence. The men talked tax reform, and Mr. Howard pressed for incentives including the mortgage interest deduction.
It was the kind of back and forth that goes on between business interests and the administration every day. And that relative normalcy — even on a day when a number of prominent C.E.O.s publicly abandoned Mr. Trump — served as a reminder that no matter the president’s missteps, his top legislative priorities, particularly tax reform, still draw strong support from business leaders.
Now, with some signs that the worst fallout from Mr. Trump’s response to Charlottesville has passed — and with the departure of Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s volatile strategist — some in the business community are voicing hope that the administration can tackle tax reform.”
-David Gelles, “Business Groups Court White House Even After C.E.O. Defections,” The New York Times online, Aug. 22, 2017