This is an Andy Grove formula. So I’m sitting at this dinner in 1995—Andy Grove was the CEO of Intel—and he gives this speech, and he says, “This is easy to understand. High tech runs three-times faster than normal businesses. And the government runs three-times slower than normal businesses. So we have a nine-times gap.” And I said, “Works for me.” But all of my experiences are consistent with Andy Grove’s observation.

These are extremely uncertain and challenging times with the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, a global material inflation, dysfunctional governments in the U.S. and Europeans not able to deal with the tough issues of debt and excess spending. I going to thank the business leaders and the operating leaders for getting the job done in very difficult and challenging times...

Then we have a government situation, their inability to deal with the real gut issues of excess spending and debt. All we hear out of government is: We're going to raise taxes. We don't like corporate planes. We're going to sue Boeing, one of the most strategic companies we have in this country, for building a new plant in South Carolina. We have no desire to really go after corporate tax reform, which would fundamentally change this country and encourage people to invest and reinvest and create jobs in this country but rather, we demagogue -- and go after people that actually create those jobs, be it corporations and people that are successful...

[T]here's nothing going on in the U.S. right now that would encourage corporations to ignore the excessive regulations coming at us, not to mention the new Dodd-Frank bill... You look at new healthcare bill. You look at the last week. We decided in Washington to raise the CAFE standards for the second time within 3 years on the day that we announced less than 1% first half GDP growth in the U.S. economy. I would say Washington is arranging the chairs on the Titanic.

Bennett (UT)
Brown (MA)
Chambliss (GA)
Collins (ME)
Corker (TN)
Graham (SC)
McCain (AZ)
Snowe (ME)