– Obama to meet with Goldman’s Blankfein, other CEOs Tuesday (Reuters, Feb 5, 2013):
President Barack Obama will meet with chief executives from 12 companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s Lloyd Blankfein and Yahoo Inc’s Marissa Mayer on Tuesday to discuss immigration and deficit reduction.
“The president will continue his engagement with outside leaders on a number of issues – including immigration reform and how it fits into his broader economic agenda, and his efforts to achieve balanced deficit reduction,” a White House official told Reuters on Monday.
Other chief executives include Arne Sorenson of Marriott International Inc, Jeff Smisek of United Continental Holdings Inc, and Klaus Kleinfeld of Alcoa Inc.
Obama’s meeting is a sign he is seeking to gather support from leading members of the U.S. business community for his top domestic priorities in the early days of his second term.
Obama’s principles for overhauling U.S. immigration laws include giving businesses a reliable way of verifying that employees are in the United States legally.
The visit includes a range of leaders from a variety of sectors.
Others included Greg Brown from communications gear maker Motorola Solutions Inc, Steve Case of investment firm Revolution LLC, Joe Echevarria of Deloitte LLP, Muhtar Kent of Coca-Cola Co, Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm Inc, Monica Lozano of ImpreMedia, and Greg Page of Cargill Inc.
The White House announced last week that it was shuttering a jobs council Obama had set up to advise him on economic issues after its charter expired. It said the president, who has had rocky relations at times with the business community — especially Wall Street executives — would continue outreach to top leaders in other ways.
The White House used backing from business leaders to press Congress to avoid the “fiscal cliff” at the end of last year and hopes to harness the same kind of support for its push to reform U.S. immigration laws.