US News

Capitalism is good, says ‘pro-biz’ Bam

WASHINGTON — Talk about moving to the political center!

President Obama hosted some of the country’s top CEOs in Washington yesterday — sounding more like a champion of free markets and lower taxes than a big-government spender.

It was clearly an effort by Obama to patch relations with critics from Wall Street who view him as hostile to business interests — just days after he huddled with Bill Clinton about the economy, sources said.

“I believe that the primary engine of America’s economic success is not government. It’s the ingenuity of America’s entrepre- neurs, it’s the dynamism of our markets,” said Obama, who has overseen unprecedented leaps in government expansion and spending aimed at jump-starting the economy.

Obama said his guiding principle for any policy dealing with the economy “is not whether it’s good short-term politics or meets somebody’s litmus test. It’s whether it will help spur businesses, jobs and growth.”

He also applauded Senate passage of an $858 billion deal he reached with Republicans that extends the Bush tax cuts for two years, slashes the payroll tax for a year and extends jobless benefits. The House of Representatives is expected to take up the bill as early as today.

But critics saw Obama’s high-profile business summit as disingenuous.

“This man is not about free American enterprise,” said Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland.

More than any president — Democrat or Republican — going back at least as far as Lyndon Johnson, Obama believes in exhaustively and aggressively regulating every sector of the economy, Morici said.

“This guy truly wants to micromanage the economy,” he said.

Obama’s clashes with the business community drew scorn in last month’s midterm elections from the US Chamber of Commerce, which spent tens of millions of dollars — the vast majority in support of Republican candidates, who have regained control of the House.

Things got so ugly that Obama took the unusual step of publicly attacking the chamber, accusing the business group of funneling foreign money into US political campaigns.

Critics say Obama has no choice but to move to the political center because of the drubbing his party took in the midterm elections over his liberal policies.

Obama is “doing what he needs to do,” said Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center. “It all comes down to jobs. It is hard to be anti-business and pro-jobs at the same time.”

The public seems to support Obama’s shift to the center. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll released last night found that a clear majority of Americans want Washington leaders to compromise rather than stick to ideological positions.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the Senate by 81-19 voted to extend the expiring Bush tax cuts for all income levels for two more years.

churt@nypost.com