And joining us now as Robert Johnson, the executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

He was the chief economist of the United States Senate Banking Committee and of the United States

Senate Budget Committee. Welcome to background briefing, Robert Johnson.

It's a pleasure to be here again. Thank you, Ian. Well, thanks to joining us, Rob. And on last

Thursday, Donald Trump met at the Business Roundtable's

Washington headquarters with over 80 CEOs, including Apples, Tim Cook, J.P. Morgan's,

Chases, Jamie Diamond, Walmart's, Doug McMillan, etc. And he promised these CEOs that he

would cut corporate taxes even further if he were

re-elected. And we know what the consequences were of Trump's 2017 tax cuts that blew up the

deficit. So what's your reading, since you know Wall Street well, what's your reading on

what's going on with these

CEOs? Because many of the same CEOs that after January 6th said that they wouldn't give a dime

to the Republicans because they were so appalled at what happened with the insurrection.

Well, I think there's always a tension between, and this is for everybody, but most extreme for a CEO of a large corporation or a billionaire.

There's always a tension between the common good and that which we might call further strengthens your personal wealth.

And at every election, because in America we have a structure which requires very substantial fundraising to run a campaign that often for president costs more than a billion dollars,

you see the wealthiest and the most

powerful corporations lining up to see what they can, how would I say, extract for their

contribution. And that unfortunately doesn't have a lot to do with the common good because the power and the pressure.

And these people all work in ways where their responsibility to their stockholders or to their

employees or whatever, how I say is a more formidable pressure in their own lives than the common good.

The common good doesn't get serviced when you have, I always tease people at INED.

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