Can America’s Top CEOs Talk Sense Into Washington?

Business leaders are once again heading to Washington this Wednesday to try to talk sense into policymakers who have apparently backtracked on fiscal cliff discussions. Sentiment heading into this round of meetings suggests that the Thanksgiving holiday allowed Democrats and Republicans the time they needed to dig some trenches and ready their fingers for pointing across the aisle.

When asked about what was holding up progress, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told press, “It’s Republicans.” Reid reiterated that little headway has been made since talks began before the Thanksgiving break.

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Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein is one of the executives who will try to lend some wisdom to policy makers. Blankfein, like many other Wall Street executives, has weighed in on the fiscal cliff issue with a level head that does spare either side.

“Without having a bias on which way the compromise should be generated, I believe our legislative leaders should affect a compromise. And in the long-run, the failure to do so will lead to less confidence in the U.S. which will have vast implications for a country that again is the strongest economy, whose currency is the reserve currency of the world,” he said in an interview with Marketplace.

Other CEOs heading to Washington include Yahoo’s (NASDAQ:YHOO) Marissa Mayer, Coca-Cola’s (NYSE:KO) Muhtar Kent, Home Depot’s (NYSE:HD) Ken Frazier, and Caterpillar’s (NYSE:CAT) Douglas Oberhelman. It will be interesting to see whether or not the executives agree with Reid, that Republicans are the problem, or whether it is a systemic failure of the culture in Washington to produce solutions…