The Job Creators Are Not Happy With Obama

And one guy who has created more jobs than just about anybody is Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas casino mogul who has had a hand in the refurbishing of the Golden Nugget, and the creation and building of Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio, Wynn's and Encore (not to mention foreign properties). Wynn was asked his opinion of the new administration:

Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn today used the forum of a telephone conference call about his company's quarterly finances to criticize President Obama.

Critical of the current presidential administration for months, Wynn, chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, voiced more criticism today in a conference call to investors, analysts and reporters.

“Right now we are more afraid of Washington than we are of the economy. We’ve got people on our backs saying don’t go to Las Vegas which is preposterous,” Wynn said. “People are beginning to ignore some of this bombastic rhetoric from the White House and that’s encouraging.”

Wynn has been vocal with his criticism of President Obama’s remarks on Las Vegas and how it has affected his business since his fourth quarter earnings call in February. Wynn said during the February earnings call since the president made his remarks, State Farm Insurance pulled out of a $5 million convention at his resorts.

Wynn noted during today’s call that small business meetings are still down during mid-week.

“Our senior senator is a Senate Majority Leader. You think that’d we’d have a leg up on this,” Wynn said. “We call Harry (Reid) on the phone and ask for help and he’s very sympathetic.”

Wynn’s calls, along with others from city officials to Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader, have obviously had some affect. Reid introduced a bill Wednesday to prevent federal agencies from ruling out tourist destinations as places to hold official meetings.

The bill follows outrage from Reid and other lawmakers last week after reports that agencies, acting on guidance dating back to last year and before, were avoiding locations with reputations as tourist destinations because of their reputations.

But Wynn wonders how far the bill will go.

“The president has his own office and his own group of people who agree with him and look at the world just as he does and they don’t listen to anyone from what I’ve heard from my business friends. They invite people down to Washington and tell them. They don’t think or listen to anyone,” Wynn said.

Vegas was pretty busy when I was there two weeks ago, but room rates are as low right now as I've seen them in the 9 years I've been going over there. I've read elsewhere that the convention business is way off, and normally when we would eat at the little bistro in Paris Las Vegas we'd see lots of conventioneers wandering around. There weren't any this time that could be identified with the usual convention paraphernalia.

Regardless of what you think of the hotel/casino business, Wynn is the kind of entrepreneur America needs, but right now there's little reason for creative people to try and build their businesses. They know when they reach a certain level they'll become targets for the taxman and the demagogues on the left.