republicans have scrutinized membership of the council which was stacked with deeppocket democratic donors and highprofile financiers of obamas reelection campaign it also included several leading figures in the privateequity industry the same kind of executives that obama publicly labeled job destroyers during the campaign against gop presidential nominee and former corporate buyout specialist mitt romney during a june 2011 meeting of the council comments from obama about delays in the permitting process for stimulus jobs became a major republican talkingpoint heading into the 2012 campaign shovelready was not as shovelready as we expected the president said as the head of his council ges immelt chuckled exuberantly abc news ann compton and mary bruce contributed reporting