What can get competitors to join hands? Deficit reduction, apparently.
The CEOs of more than 80 major U.S. corporations came together Thursday in a show of unity to urge Congress to tackle the country’s fiscal situation. The group, which includes the heads of BlackRock (BLK), Broadridge, Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM), as well as companies outside financial services like Boeing, Honeywell and Cisco Systems, released a statement meant to pressure politicians to act.
“Policymakers should acknowledge that our growing debt is a serious threat to the economic well-being and security of the United States,” the statement reads. “It is urgent and essential that we put in place a plan to fix America’s debt. An effective plan must stabilize the debt as a share of the economy, and put it on a downward path.”
This plan should be enacted now, they urge, but implemented gradually to protect the fragile economic recovery and to give Americans time to prepare for the changes in the federal budget, according to the signers. And it should be bipartisan and include every area of the budget.