Chicago Republicans

It's pure soap opera. After a year and a half of battering the business community, the Obama administration attempts to woo it back with a round-the-clock charm offensive. It would be mildly entertaining if the issue weren't so dead serious.

For much of President Obama's term, it was convenient to vilify businesses when the White House needed a bogeyman to help pass its legislative agenda (see health care, financial reform). But now the administration and Democratic leaders in Congress have a mighty political predicament on their hands.

They have spent unprecedented sums of money — piling onto an increasingly unsustainable debt burden — yet have very little to show for it.

Anemic private-sector job growth has spurred top administration and House Democratic officials to issue dire warnings about their party's fate in the upcoming fall elections.

Meanwhile, the private businesses America relies on for job creation are making clear that the hostile rhetoric and anticompetitive policies emanating from Washington have been a severe disincentive for hiring more workers.

That's why the administration now comes crawling back. The White House has hosted some of the most prominent business leaders over the past month. It has pledged "an open door" and solicited their input and ideas. Meanwhile, top representatives of the White House have made their rounds on financial television and Sunday talk shows to put a business-friendly gloss on the administration's controversial economic program.

The problem for the White House is that its PR push is not backed up with any substance — and words are no substitute for deeds. How could anyone construe this as a sincere effort to encourage new investment and job creation — or, much less, to reassure businesses of all sizes that they won't be hit with massive new tax hikes at the end of the year?

Businesses won't simply forget the damage done over the past 18 months. Amid a historically sluggish economic recovery, the Obama administration has pursued cap-and-trade, card check, health care mandates and burdensome financial regulation.

Beyond the uncertainty relating to taxes, business owners of all sizes don't know what to expect from the next wave of government regulations. Investors and lenders, who are essential to getting credit moving again, don't know what the new rules will be and cannot calculate their return on investment.

As a result, according to the Federal Reserve, U.S. businesses are sitting on top of a record $1.8 trillion in cash — dollars that could translate into droves of jobs if only pulled from the sidelines and invested.