Obama on Auto Execs' Private Jets: 'A Little Tone Deaf'
In Exclusive Interview With Barbara Walters, President-Elect Barack Obama Also Says He's Trying to Keep BlackBerry
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN
Nov. 25, 2008—
Wall Street executives seeking multimillion-dollar bonuses, and the leaders of Detroit's Big Three automakers who last week flew to Washington aboard private jets to ask Congress for a bailout, are "tone deaf" to the concerns of the American people, President-elect Barack Obama said today in an exclusive interview with ABC's Barbara Walters.
Weeks away from his inauguration, Obama stressed to Walters the importance of personal, corporate and civic accountability in light of the cratering economy and said his presidency would be a return to "the ethic of responsibility."
Obama said "captains of industry" on Wall Street and in Detroit who took advantage of corporate perks while their companies benefited from government loans paid for with taxpayers' money, don't have "any perspective on what's happening to ordinary Americans."
More on Wednesday's "Good Morning America" and "World News" and watch "Barack Obama: The Barbara Walters Interview," Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET
Executives placed in a position of authority have "got responsibilities to your workers. You've got a responsibility to your community; to your share holders. There's got to be a point where you say, 'I have enough, and now I'm in this position of responsibility. Let me make sure that I'm doing right by people and acting in a way that is responsible,'" Obama said.
Executives at many of Wall Street's top firms, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, have, in recent days, laid off scores of workers and announced they would forgo Christmas bonuses, a policy the incoming president indicated he wanted to see more of.
Asked by Walters if bank executives should forgo their bonuses , Obama said, "I think they should."
"That's an example of taking responsibility. I think that if you are already worth tens of millions of dollars, and you are having to lay off workers, the least you can do is say, 'I'm willing to make some sacrifice as well, because I recognize that there are people who are a lot less well off, who are going through some pretty tough times,'" the president-elect added.
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"One of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day ... " he said. "I want to make sure that I keep my finger on the pulse of the struggles that people are going through every day."
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6329884
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