Opinion: Democrat Steve Wynn on Obama: ‘Until he’s gone, everybody’s going to be sitting on their thumbs’
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Going out on juniper limb here, but it doesn’t seem like Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn will be one of the major bundlers of campaign fundraising cash for President Obama’s reelection this year, next year or any year.
Wynn, the head of Wynn Resorts, was on a conference call this week with investment analysts, talking about the nation’s business climate and the outlook for hotel and gaming in Las Vegas and Macau, when the subject of Washington came up.
Holy Smokes! You’d have thought someone hit the million-dollar jackpot on the nickel machines!
Wynn, a billionaire who calls himself a Harry Reid-supporting Democrat, went off on an epic rant. According to the wondrous website Seeking Alpha, which has the entire call transcript, Wynn blasted....
...Washington pols in general and Barack Obama in particular for destroying the U.S. business climate despite all of his talk about creating jobs. One key Wynn passage:
I’m telling you that the business community in this country is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he’s gone, everybody’s going to be sitting on their thumbs.
Wynn said he could very quickly create 10,000 new jobs himself and with the multiplier effect help create another 20,000 hires in Las Vegas. But like many other business people in both parties he’s holding back under the current Democratic Obama administration.
I’m afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States. You watch television and see what’s going on, on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing’s going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress... I’m saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business and progress and job creation in my lifetime... Those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don’t want to say that. They’ll say, ‘Oh God, don’t be attacking Obama.’ Well, this is Obama’s deal, and it’s Obama that’s responsible for this fear in America. The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution, and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don’t invest or holding too much money. We haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody’s afraid of the government, and there’s no need to soft peddling it, it’s the truth.
Other than that though, Wynn sounds like he’s up for another four years of the Real Good Talker.
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