As Chamber Builds Up Political Operation, Treasury Officials Express Frustration With Group’s Distortions
As Chamber Builds Up Political Operation, Treasury Officials Express Frustration With Group’s Distortions
The LA Times reports today on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s growing “large-scale grass-roots political operation” that is being “funded by record-setting amounts of money raised from corporations and wealthy individuals.” In 2009, the Chamber spent $144 million on lobbying and grassroots organizing, “well beyond the spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican national committees.” Some more details on its new initiative:
The chamber has signed up some 6 million individuals who are not chamber members and has begun asking them to help with lobbying and, soon, with get-out-the-vote efforts in upcoming congressional campaigns. [...]
The new grass-roots program, the brainchild of chamber political director Bill Miller, is concentrating on 22 states. Among them are Colorado, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is vulnerable; Arkansas, where Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces an uphill reelection battle; and Ohio, where the chamber sees opportunities in numerous House races and an open Senate seat.
The network, called Friends of the U.S. Chamber, has been used to generate more than a million letters and e-mails to members of Congress, 700,000 of them in opposition to the Democratic healthcare plan. That is an increase from 40,000 congressional contacts generated in 2008.
According to the LA Times, the Chamber’s “expanding influence” is “worrisome” to top White House officials, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett. This frustration was echoed yesterday in a meeting with top Treasury Department officials, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, that ThinkProgress attended.
When asked by ThinkProgress what they think of the Chamber, officials agreed that the association — along with some other groups in the business community — are deliberately distorting the administration’s positions to the American public. They expressed particular dissatisfaction with the the Chamber’s ad campaign fear-mongering against the administration’s push for a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency. In January, the Chamber arranged to “fly-in” some representatives from small businesses to Capitol Hill and “lead” them to a pre-arranged series of anti-CFPA meetings. The association’s ad campaign contains the ludicrous claims that the CFPA would regulate bakeries and grocery stores.
As many federal lawmakers and the Obama administration push for cap-and-trade legislation, health care reform, regulatory reform, and corporate tax reform, the U.S. Chamber stands as the most well-funded opposition to progressive change. The group spent $10-$20 million of insurance-industry-provided cash on fighting reform. After Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, the Chamber was quick to congratulate itself for running television ads in support of the candidate.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the worst, anti-American, anti-worker, anti-government, PRO-BIG business groups in America.
We’ve hated them for years.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:04 pmNothing says “American Capitalism” like the self-perpetuation of a radically laissez-faire collection of corporations whose sole intent is to stifle labour rights, environmentalism, and social welfare in order to make a buck.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:05 pmJesus! Just dismantle the friggin thing. They have done nothing for us as a Country. In fact, THEY are responsible for many of our problems. I wish the Dems would grow a spine and do SOMETHING to save the Middle Class and poor. WTF?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:06 pmI totally agree, ED. If allowed to reign unchecked, the workers of America (even the anti-union ones) and their children would suffer the same cruelties as the workers in China do. Instead, it’s too easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to anything progressive.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:07 pmIt’s about time the CoC got called out.
4. TVB,
The CoC SHOULD be called out, but it’s ultimately a catch-22. The only ones reporting on the organization’s misdeeds and gross contempt for the common welfare of the American populace are left-leaning blogs, which the CoC can either ignore or mock derisively. The MSM could take up the story, but they won’t. Due in large part to them being owned by and sponsored by the same corporations that make up the CoC.
Don’t ya love our political/economic system?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:13 pmIs it me or does their emblem resemble the fascist/communist/socialist/muslim emblem used by the Kenyan usurper?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:14 pmExcellent point, ED. This is part of the reason I have been calling for the publicization of all news organizations.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:15 pm@6
Idi Amin?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:15 pmThe Chamber knows that the poor aren’t poor enough and the uber rich aren’t rich enough.
If they had their way we all would be slaves…oh, wait, we are.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:21 pmOT: The National Community Reinvestment Coalition’s John Taylor was on C-SPAN’s ‘Washington Journal’ this morning to talk about the mortgage crisis and banks/Wall Street. Very good program!
http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Media/2010/03/09/WJE/A/30458/John+Taylor+National+Community+Reinvestment+Coalition+President+CEO.aspx
March 9th, 2010 at 12:21 pmObama has started lambasting the insurance companies. He needs to add the banks and financial services.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:22 pmThe US Chamber Of Commerce should be shut down and replaced with a US Chamber Of Consumers & American workers.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:23 pmThanks chief justice roberts, you sold America to the highest bidder.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:26 pmCongrats, Scrotus, you’ve sold us to the highest bidder.
Welcome to corporate slavery, America.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:28 pmFred! GMTA!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:28 pmcitizen_pain says:
Is it me or does their emblem resemble the fascist/communist/socialist/muslim emblem used by the Kenyan usurper?
I see a middle finger somewhere near the center…
March 9th, 2010 at 12:29 pmMay their first action be to pressure Congress to withdraw from NAFTA, CAFTA, and any other “free trade” agreement that outsources American jobs and drastically underpays workers in other countries.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:29 pmOr is it a tidal wave of greed and corruption?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:29 pm“Grass Roots Movement” my ass! This is anything but that. they are taking a page from the Teabaggers who organized the “Grass Roots” opposition to Health Care Reform last summer and conducted their Terrorist Campaign to intimidate and threaten the members of Congress and American Citizens who support reform.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:31 pmThis is no different.
Truth in advertising says name them Rich White Man’s Club.
BTW – ask them about their role in establishing SPAM as a drain on the internet and the effects that has had on the country .
March 9th, 2010 at 12:32 pmThe U.S. Chamber of Commerce is an oxy-moron like the Federal Reserve.
Hey wait a minute they’re one in the same!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:33 pmpags2 says:
Obama has started lambasting the insurance companies. He needs to add the banks and financial services.
———————————————————
I agree but I hate to say this but Obama’s insurance mandate is the equivalence of another bailout. He can lambast the insurance companies all he wants but where are the regulations in the senate bill to stop health insurance companies from raising their customers premiums 20%, 30%, 40%?
He has talked tough to the banks, Wall Street and credit card companies but again where are the regulations to stop the theft by the banks and Wall Street or the opposition to insane usury by credit card companies?
He has talked about the need to save Americans homes and yet the H.A.M.P program has been a complete failure with no teeth to push the lenders to modify or refinance mortgages.
I’m all for the President lambasting insurance companies, the banks and financial service sector but if it is just an act, just empty words with no tough laws and regulations, Obama’s lambasting is just pandering to the angry masses without changing a thing.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:34 pmThe U.S. Chamber of Commerce is turning into a sort of fortress of the right wing capitalist ideology that dominates America’s business and political leadership. Let’s hope it becomes the last stand of these embattled thieves.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:36 pmIMO, during the course of inter-group negotiations, valuable time spent expressing group’s purposes may have little, directly, to do with the gender, age, or region of the individual negotiators; rather, it is the ability to communicate the ‘profitable’ nature of each negotiators’ respective, group or groups, which will ultimately attain beneficial, or social value!?
Limitations on expression may achieve the threshholds, of concern for the security of their own group, or the security of the other group; this, in terms of:
*security of (stored) information;
*security of inter-personal interactions;
*security of ideas, or agreements, or disagreements;
*clarity with which the inherent value(s) of things at issue, can be separated in meaning, and reality from other objects, so as to be further related to such other things, external, to human beings;
March 9th, 2010 at 12:36 pmWhy isn’t anyone on Wall Street or from the banks in prison for nearly destroying our economy while preying on Americans in their quest for $$$$$$
March 9th, 2010 at 12:36 pmRUCerious, true dat. Seemed so obvious didn’t it?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:37 pm@25
March 9th, 2010 at 12:43 pmIt’s because they knew how to “buy” or justice system..
That’s the same reason that Bush and Cheney,Inc aren’t in Gitmo for war crimes right now….
March 9th, 2010 at 12:44 pmDon’t our trolls have something to say about this topic?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:45 pmI thought they worshipped the CoC…
March 9th, 2010 at 12:46 pmAs well as the free market system and “reganomics”.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:46 pmI don’t trust them, their logo clearly shows an American Eagle about to be drowned in a tidal wave of blood and whiteness. Won’t someone think of the eagles!?!?!?!?!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:54 pmUSCoC is a tool for any corporation willing to lay down money.
Family values? Sure, we can buy you that.
Same sex marriage? Sure, we can oppose that.
Climate change? Hell, we’ll do that at a discount for you.
National Security? BOO!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:54 pmSo are progressives going to finally stop pouting and come together to take down the Chamber of Commerce or are you going to leave it all to Obama and then blame him when your agenda doesn’t get passed?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:55 pmIf this is such a ‘grass roots’ movement, why does it need such expensive greens keepers?
March 9th, 2010 at 1:03 pmWe need to relabel it. It is a putting green movement.
And the logo does look like a tidal wave of blood and whiteness but the eagle looks more like someone bending over.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:06 pmInsidious Prophet says:
pags2 says:
Obama has started lambasting the insurance companies. He needs to add the banks and financial services.
———————————————————
I agree but I hate to say this but Obama’s insurance mandate is the equivalence of another bailout.
I am in total agreement. The mandate is a giveaway to the insurance companies to the tune of billions of dollars. The health care bill does little to contain costs. Dennis Kucinich is against the bill for these reasons and I agree. Without a public option, we will still have large copays and premiums. The mandate is a license to steal.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:07 pmOoohhhh, so that’s what an enemy combatant looks like.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:44 pmDoes all this union busting and pro capitalism leading to collapse remind anyone of the events leading to both the Great Depression AND the procapitalism and union busting wherein the industrialists were rooting for the Nazis in the 1930s ?
March 9th, 2010 at 2:27 pmBravo to the CofC.
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