Business Voices Frustration With GOP

The budget stalemate that had the U.S. flirting with default has left business and the Republican Party, longtime political allies, at a crossroads.

In interviews with representatives of companies large and small, executives predicted a change in how business would approach politics. They didn’t foresee a new alignment with Democrats but forecast backing challengers to tea-party conservatives in GOP primaries, increasing political engagement with centrist Republicans and, for some, disengaging with politics altogether.

Many business executives say they were dismayed that some Republicans didn’t heed their warnings that closing the government and risking default would hurt the U.S. economy. Others expressed disgust with Washington politics in general. All said the crisis could have been averted with a more pragmatic approach.

The decades long relationship between American business and the GOP is certainly likely to endure, with business still feeling a kinship and shared goals with many in the party, including a push for lower taxes and lighter regulation.

But the conversation among businesses is “characterized by tremendous frustration and angst,” said Dirk Van Dongen, president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, a trade group. “Because at the end of the day, the system is supposed to produce results, and the failure to produce results has consequences.”

John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan who now heads the Business Roundtable, a trade group, said the normal legislative process—where bills are debated and passed by each house of Congress, and then marriedtogether—encourages compromise. “Today we have a significant number of people who don’t want to compromise because they think they can win something that’s been unwinnable,” he said.

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