Real estate billionaire Stephen Ross says the government is taking an anti-business stance these days.  "Business is being painted as the culprit of all our problems and I don't think that's it at all," said Ross when we caught up at his office in Columbus Circle this week.  Ross, owner of pro-football's Miami Dolphins and founder of real estate giant The Related Companies, says it hasn't been all bad news in the realm of real estate during the past year: the industry has experienced some improvement since there's not much over-building happening, allowing several markets to begin experiencing a correction.  Still, he added that the U.S. won't be seeing much growth for at least another three years and that the government's policies toward business and growth are anti-business and anti-growth: "We're really pitting business against labor unions in a way that I think will hurt the growth of this country and what this country stands for."  He was in agreement with News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, fellow real estate mogul Jerry Speyer and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who said during last week's New York Forum that the U.S. is in danger of losing its competitive edge (see here what the world's richest man had to say about the US losing its edge).  Ross' advice to the Obama administration: "clean up the union problems, legacy costs and all the bad contracts that have been signed."  Despite his discontent with the government, Ross is a firm advocate of doing his part by paying up his taxes. Although he admires Warren Buffet and Bill Gates' recent challenge to Forbes 400 members to pledge at least half their net worth to charity, he thinks that leaving that money to the government in the form of taxes is another form of giving back.  "The U.S. government is basically a nonprofit institution," he said. "So paying taxes is like giving away to an organization."
Although the government is becoming anti-business, billionaire Stephen Ross is not begrudging when it comes to paying his taxes.