In an effort to position itself as business-friendly and do battle with the Republicans over the budget deficit, President Obama met a group of small business owners in Cleveland and emphasized that the way to increase American competitiveness is to increase spending on education and transportation.
With the results of the mid-term elections favoring the Republicans, and reducing the majority of the Democrats in the Senate, Obama has been on a campaign to repair his relationships with business, and this meeting in Cleveland was a part of that.
And it’s no surprise that the President chose Ohio (apart from California which he visited earlier) since it is such a politically important state to schedule a listening session with small business owners.
After listening to these small business owners, they were divided into panels in order to focus on topics of importance such as job training and exports and so on and so forth. Once they finished meeting, Obama then discussed what he had heard regarding the increase of exports of mozzarella as well as the crucial role networking plays in business.
One businessman suggested that Obama make changes to tax policy that allows people to invest in small businesses without having to pay capital gains tax, and to which, Obama added that this was already implemented last year.
Obama’s next visit will be to Florida next week, and in meeting hi-tech business executives from Facebook, Google and Apple, it seems as if the President is gearing to position himself favorably for the battle over the budget deficit in Washington shortly.