The Defender of Private Equity Tax Breaks

Steve Judge might as well have a “kick me” sign pinned to the backside of his nicely tailored trousers. In January, the veteran Washington lobbyist was named president and chief executive officer of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council in Washington, which is a fancy way of saying he’s the head cheerleader for some of the nation’s richest—and, at the moment, least popular—people. Sure, the pay is good: about $1 million a year. But here’s his job: protecting the 15 percent tax rate for private equity managers at Blackstone Group, KKR, and the Carlyle Group, among others, while many average Americans are taxed at a much higher rate on their income.

Judge says he knew when he took the position that if Mitt Romney became the Republican nominee, the Obama campaign would attack his long career running Bain Capital and the tax benefits that helped fortify his remarkable investment gains. He just hadn’t planned on Romney’s fellow Republicans beating the President to the punch in the primaries, accusing Romney of looting companies, relishing firing people, and being a vulture capitalist. “We were confident that the private equity business model was going to be an issue in the campaign,” says Judge, who is known for choosing his words carefully. “I don’t think anybody expected that it would be an issue in January.”