Chamber Pot

“That’s hardly shocking–the Chamber makes little secret of its role as a lobbying vehicle for its donors.”
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And that’s what makes it “hardly shocking”? That corporations can buy our government right out in the open? If Thomas Jefferson were alive he would spit in your face…after he kicked your ass.

Yes, reporters have been reporting on this for months.

while the Chamber has as legitimate a claim to representing this sector as any organization around—96 percent of its members have fewer than 100 employees—it is also beholden to a cadre of multinationals whose interests are often inimical to those of small business. In 2008, a third of its revenues came from just nineteen companies. … “Donohue brought in generalist lobbyists who knew about the politics but not the substance of the issues,” says Willard Workman, a Chamber vice president from 1988 to 2004. “They couldn’t go to the Hill and talk about an export-control regime, because they couldn’t spell ‘regime.’” … While I talked to many local chamber heads who said they rely on the Chamber’s resources, I also spoke to many who are coming to resent Donohue. “Their stances have occasionally alienated local businesses,” says Tim Sink, president of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce in New Hampshire. In Sink’s region, the Chamber ran health care attack ads targeting Congressman Paul Hodes, a popular legislator with bipartisan support who’s now running for Senate. “It put the local chambers in an awkward situation, I can tell you that.” … [In 2004], the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform became involved in an attorney general race in Washington State, waging a campaign via a front group called the Voters Education Committee. The Chamber’s interventions met with such broad public disfavor that Steve Leahy, president of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce at the time, had to send out 10,000 e-mails distancing his organization from the U.S. Chamber. “We had a lot of cleaning up we had to do on their behalf,” Leahy told me. Even the institute’s director from 1999 to 2002, James Wootton, whom Donohue appointed, regretted at least one attack ad campaign he waged against an Ohio judge, one that resulted in a suit against the Chamber. “I came to believe that we probably shouldn’t have run those ads,” Wootton told me.

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They have a long history, and a pleasantly generic name, but lately, they’re anything but a respectable, honest group.

“Yes, reporters have been reporting on this for months.”
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Though, at least, Crowley’s title was pretty good.

“That’s hardly shocking–the Chamber makes little secret of its role as a lobbying vehicle for its donors. And by my read the story doesn’t tell us anything about who, exactly, is funding the Chamber’s $75 million midterm election advertising campaign.”
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For the love of all that is holy Michael. Its all foreign money and its all coming from corporations and individuals who have wealth and interest that need to be protected from the United States government and the rules and regulations that government could implement that puts that wealth and interest at risk.
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Get a clue. Every major corporation in this country including Google, Fox News, MSNBC’s corporate parent and CNN funnels its through foreign countries from the Bahamas to Ireland to avoid paying U.S. taxes and hide where their political contributions are acutally going and for what.

I actually appreciate Crowley posting this.
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Forget the “hardly shocking” part, shedding any light on what the CoC really is is as positive development.

Michael — anyone who gives money to the Chamber is supporting its campaign spending. Anyone. That’s what the press is missing here. While it’d be neat to know if anyone is giving money earmarked for this purpose but it’s enough to just list the companies and individuals who donate to the Chamber in any capacity.

If I told you that I don’t like Wal-Mart’s labor practices abroad but that I shop there anyway because I don’t think they use my money to support those particular policies you’d laugh me out of the discussion, right? It’s the same thing here. The Chamber’s dues paying members should all be held responsible for what the Chamber does. Period. So start at home. Is TimeWarner one of them?

Although it is pretty clear that it’s not driven overwhelmingly by mom-and-pop Main Street businesses.

Um, try, “not driven by mom-and-pop Main Street businesses at all.

By the way, I’m not out there for thinking this. Look at how two of the Chamber’s own members dealt with the issue of climate change and the Chamber:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574469521188829810.html

Nike and Apple complained. They resigned from the Chamber’s board. They reduced their level of dues paying membership.

You want to know who’s behind this? The Chamber tells you. Here’s it’s board.

http://www.uschamber.com/about/board/board-directors

AT&T, Accenture, 3M, UPS, Lockheed Martin, JPMorgan Chase, Alcoa… There you go. Those are the companies who want to elect Republicans in 2010. Some of them are, I’m sure, proud of it. Others might worry that some customers will object. But all are represented on the Chamber’s board and all are reponsible. Call them!

“An organization that in 2003 had an overall budget of about $130 million, it is spending $200 million this year, and the chamber and its affiliates allocated $144 million last year just for lobbying, making it the biggest lobbyist in the United States.”
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“In January, the chamber’s president, Thomas J. Donohue, a former trucking lobbyist, announced that his group intended “to carry out the largest, most aggressive voter education and issue advocacy effort in our nearly 100-year history.”

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“The words were carefully chosen, as the chamber asserts in filings with the Federal Election Commission that it is simply running issue ads during this election season. But a review of the nearly 70 chamber-produced ads found that 93 percent of those that have run nationwide that focus on the midterm elections either support Republican candidates or criticize their opponents.”
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Only 93%?

“The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that’s raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work.

We’re losing our democracy to a different system. It’s called plutocracy.”

http://robertreich.org/post/1344561814

Thats not true. Organizations have separate accounts. Just like you could give Bill Clinton money and it went into an account to build his library, and you know that none of that money went to Bill.
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The Corporate Coup D’etat 2000-20010
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Step 1): Install a useful corporatist idiot as President, using our corporatist Federalist Society Supreme Court hacks.
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Step 2): Appoint even more corporatist Federalist Society Supreme Court hacks (smirking as they lie about stare decisis).
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Step 3): Shred the Constitution by proclaiming that corporations have the Bill of Rights protection intended only for individual persons and citizens.
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Step 4): Buy the next and all future governments.

Each bullet point raises questions, the greater mystery being how and why the middle class falls in line for it all at their own expense and peril.

That was the prequel: corrupt the public media with a giant right-wing propaganda machine and valueless mainstream media conventions guaranteed to conceal the lies of professional “conservatives” as well as the treason of our oligarchs.

“Although it is pretty clear that it’s not driven overwhelmingly by mom-and-pop Main Street businesses.”
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I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been in/patronized or even heard of a “mom and pop” store that has $1.7 million just lying around.
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Further, why shouldn’t Dow give money to the chamber to advance it’s interests?
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Dow, the same company that was nearly destroyed by frivolous lawsuits claiming it’s breast implants caused neuro-muscular problems and was ordered to pay far more than the company was worth before it finally came out that there was no science behind these claims in the first place, and later it was discovered that the claims were totally trumped up by lawyers going out to scare people into suing so the lawyers could take their 30%.
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Further, who is anyone on here to say that the interests of a company like Dow don’t align in someway with smaller business? If you make billions like down, or just $250,001 as a small company your taxes are still going up next year. Seems to me the guy making $250,001 per year on his whole business, most of which will be reinvested, has the same interest in keeping corporate taxes and capital gains low as the guy who makes $250,000,000.
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Look at it this way, because this is the truth: the C of C is nothing more than a labor union for companies, and they appear from everything I’ve seen to be a lot more above board than SEIU or AFL-CIO. At least they’re not beating up black people that disagree with them at a town-hall meeting.

Shep, I’d say “Installation” is a wonderful way of describing US elections. 2000 was merely the most egregious example. Our present corporatist in chief may have gotten the most votes, he may not be an outright idiot, but he’s still a servile tool the oligarchs wield like a shiny baton.

I’m guessing he found out in no time that it’s their world, he’s just living in it. He looks like he’s aged ten years since the election.

who is anyone on here to say that the interests of a company like Dow don’t align in someway with smaller business?
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I am.
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I am part of a small business, and I know my interests do not align with Dow’s.
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Small businesses force giants like Dow to compete, to innovate, and to respond, all of which are less profitable and achievable than comfortable rent-seeking in a consolidating market. That means big players like Dow would rather establish arrangements with the state such that the current market, which is favorable to them, is preserved as much as possible.

In economics, rent seeking occurs when an individual, organization or firm seeks to earn income by capturing economic rent through manipulation or exploitation of the economic or political environment, rather than by earning profits through economic transactions and the production of added wealth.
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Most studies of rent seeking focus on efforts to capture special monopoly privileges, such as government regulation of free enterprise competition, though the term itself is derived from the far older and more established practice of appropriating a portion of production by gaining ownership or control of land.
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From a theoretical standpoint, the moral hazard of rent seeking can be considerable. If “buying” a favorable regulatory environment is cheaper than building more efficient production, a firm may choose the former option, reaping incomes entirely unrelated to any contribution to total wealth or well-being.
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This results in a sub-optimal allocation of resources — money spent on lobbyists and counter-lobbyists rather than on research and development, improved business practices, employee training, or additional capital goods — which retards economic growth. Claims that a firm is rent-seeking therefore often accompany allegations of government corruption, or the undue influence of special interests.[8]

When I, and my small business get a tax cut along with Dow, I get to invest more of my money into my business, sure, but Dow gets to invest much, much more money into lobbying the state into structuring the market so that I stay small, if I get to stay in business at all.
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My interests do not align with Dow’s, because such giants find much more common cause with a partnership-amenable government than they would ever find with competitors, even tiny ones like me.
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To the extent that the directors of small enterprises assume their interests lie with AT&T or TIME-Warner or General Electric or CitiGroup, they are indulging in hubris or attempts at vicarious prestige. Big players exist to literally drive them out of business before profits are threatened. Small guys compete, big guys pay not to compete, and when the former forgets that fact, the latter eats them, and consumers ultimately pay the price along with the prey.
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As a small business, I know that my best interests lie in the state maintaining an adversarial relationship with the patrons of the Chamber of Commerce, even to the extent that confiscatory taxes are applied, so that their wealth enters the coffers of the bureaucracy, rather than the coffers of individual legislators, campaigns and political parties. I have much more of a shot at staying in business that way.
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Now, of course I’m not referring to the perverse and destructive policies of the New Democrats, in which Kafka-eseque schemes like the horrendous new 1099 vendor reporting requirements get baked into legislation like the PPACA as a means of “paying for” the program that subsidizes insurance giants with tax-payer dollars.
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That’s the opposite of the relationship that should exist between the state and big finance and industry –it’s an attempt at partnership, which hurts everyone else.
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The stupidity of the New Democrats’ political program is that the Chamber of Commerce, like capital itself, like the establishment right, will never be satisfied with a partnership, even one in which they play the dominant role occasionally.
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Nothing short of pre-1933 robber-baron plutocracy will satisfy those interests, but the corporatist Dems just refuse to recognize that capital cannot abide limits, so they keep trying. They make deals with the objects of their regulations, but even when they literally write those interests’ customers and profits into law, it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
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Are you aware that “a labor union for companies” has had a few other historically important names in America’s free enterprise system, like “oligopoly” or “cartel” or “trust?”
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It seems as if you might not be, because, while it’s not market-destroying, democracy-corrupting and illegal to form unions of wealth-less working people who compete to sell their labor by the hour, it sure the f*ck is to form unions of corporations who can buy the government, at least here in America, where we recognize that competition between economic powers is a necessary good in a free-er market.
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I know that because I’m an American, not because I’m in small company, by the way.

“Chamber pot?” No bias there. It’s not even that funny.

BTW, the other person I read recently who used the past tense to describe the coup was Chris Hedges:
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http://www.truth-out.org/chris-hedges-march-nowhere63928
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Of course, his way FWD is dramatically different.

Here is a real chamber pot -NPR

Bill O’Reilly: ‘It’s Over for NPR’

http://conservativeblogscentral.blogspot.com/2010/10/bill-oreilly-its-over-for-npr.html

Maddow and Olbermann have been doing some good reporting on this subject.

Liberalmeltdown: Conservatives often speak of unions using part of their dues for political purposes without consulting their members.
Do you suppose corporations consult their stockholders or the National CC consults their members before contributing? Do you think they owe these people some transparency and some consultation?

OK Stuart, you can copy and paste from Wikipedia. Can you give a real life example of a company that is making “rent”, a stupid term, from buying favorable regulations in this economy, other than Freddie, Fannie, GM, Chrysler, and GE? All these are firms that the current administration favors. While I appreciate your amazing ability to speak in abstract terms and ideals, I find it difficult to connect the dots, Stuart. A small business usually is much more focused on micro economic issues. So, I am curious as to how you concentrate on the larger Macro issues. Are you envious of Corps that you believe can buy favorable regulations, or are you just blowing smoke?
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You seem to be obsessed with cable and phone companies, also. Are these the only large corporations you know, or just what you can remember? The only bills you have? In short, you don’t sound like a capitalist, but someone that has been indoctrinated into class warfare.
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Really, you believe that confiscating capital into government bureaucracy is somehow going to trickle down and help you? Are you stupid? A multinational corporation will hide its assets overseas or find ways to keep the government from sticking its hand in their cookie jar. Where did you go to school? The Karl Marx School of Business.

Does anyone ever wonder who all of those “New Democrats” are that stuart laments about all the time?
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How all of these “New Democrats” have voted for the kind of regulations which keep the small business guy on the ropes, and allow the big mean ugly businesses get away with all of their schemes?
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Stuart:
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Exactly how does that break down in the current House and Senate? Who are those New Democrats who have sided with the evil empire, the big business corporatist? How did their votes go down? Do you have a break down of them on various bills which show they voted against the Mom and Pop business in favor of the larger conglomerates?
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Or is it simply explained away by powerful lobbyist groups in Washington? Big time lobbyist who are able to buy each and every vote, day after day from any one of the corrupt politicians whether they be (D)’s or (R)’s?
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Maybe it is not even in regulations at all. Maybe it is simply a matter of passing laws which totally abolish anyone from lobbying PERIOD. No more big Labor Union lobbyist. No more big NEA, Chamber of Commerce, American Association of Pipe Fitters, Environmentally Safe this or that.
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Why not work on a political environment which totally abolishes ALL special interest groups. Level the playing field and allow the Free Market be the judge as to who is successful or not.
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Government should only step in when a company becomes simply too large and stifles all competition, a-la Ma Bell once was busted up.

“Can you give a real life example of a company that is making “rent”, a stupid term, from buying favorable regulations in this economy”
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meltdown, your REALLY need to Google “Massey Energy” or “Don Blankenship”. If you don’t think buying judges, senators and other politicians with the sole intent of stifling regulation and oversight is an issue, then you’ve placed your laissez-faire capitalism above human life. And Massey is just one of the more egregious cases of turning a blindeye to corporate malfeasance.
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“Where did you go to school? The Karl Marx School of Business.”
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And I could say you sound like you want a return to sweatshops and indentured servants. I don’t think wanting to limit the influence of corporations in political campaigns is the equivalent of nationalizing the means of production, but it seems like conservatives are no longer capable of making a nuanced argument without resorting to extremist rhetoric. You’re either Karl Marx or not in their world.

The CofC is nothing more than a PAC, secretly run by Rove, provided by a Supreme Court “Judge” paid for from GOP PAC money……….

Well, now I have a better idea of businesses that I should boycott. Dow has a lot of products, but they are listed at ,

Dow products: http://www.dow.com/products/browse.page

doneck, you stumbled across the reason that Democrats want the list.

liberal:
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First off, thanks for the compliment.
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I only have like five minutes to respond, because a lot of stuff has come down to the wire, and, as you know, I’m leaving for New Zealand with @lovely_bride (her twitter handle) in a matter of hours.
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“A small business usually is much more focused on micro economic issues. So, I am curious as to how you concentrate on the larger Macro issues. Are you envious of Corps that you believe can buy favorable regulations, or are you just blowing smoke?”
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If you mean “focused on micro issues,” as in “putting out products and services bought by customers,” then, yes, I’m focused as hell on that.
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I just made a mobile signature application for Win6.5 last week, for example, and I’m focused on putting it into production. I’d like to make an iPhone app that does that and more. I’m focused on the fact that Apple is making me jump through ridiculous hoops to make applications for their iPhone, unlike, say, NBC (or TIME.com, for that matter), which gets their worthless, CPU-and-batter-draining apps approved in a matter of days, if not minutes. Apple can do that to me, though, because they’re got the size and market control to keep me and my tiny company from competing with the likes of General Electric-owned NBC-Universal, and to give that company massive advantage, even if their product is inferior, because it suits their strategic interests to advantage the biggest players, who will do similar anti-competitive favors for them.
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Yes, I’m focused on microeconomic issues.
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My bringing up the new, insane, completely f*cked 1099 vendor expenditure reporting requirements in the PPACA is another example of focus on micro issues. Again, though, it serves to illustrate how the big companies have the resources to comply, while we little people do not, and therefore that sort of regulation, while nibbling into the wealth cheese of the giants, serves to enhance their advantages over those who can’t afford to lose comparative crumbs.
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No, I’m not blowing smoke, this is reality, we see it all of the time.
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The one thing that I didn’t mention, which you could certainly make an argument out of, is that big companies are frequently little firm’s clients. I could describe in great detail how that still doesn’t make our interests aligned, but I’m out of time right now, so just think about how big player procurement departments work to make little companies compete to the death over pennies at the margins, just like they put “associates” on 35 hour work weeks, for all of the exploitative, end-running accomplishment of similar margins. Still, if you wanted to really make a decent argument about how government policy can hurt small businesses, you’d start at how big players have less to spend on little guys like me. If you did that, though, in good faith, you’d have to consider all the angles, which might balance that argument out, a bit.
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“You seem to be obsessed with cable and phone companies, also. Are these the only large corporations you know, or just what you can remember?”
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Well, if you thought about it for a few moments, I’m sure you’d recognize a few special qualities of those particular organizations.
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1) they’re some of the best examples of quasi-monopolies or oligopolies that directly control markets, i.e. they’re utilities that provide the roads upon which businesses have to drive to get their products to market
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2) they’re deeply involved in the security state’s domestic spying programs, something that the non-statist left (movement liberals) finds an unacceptable, structural breach of liberty
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3) they’re a prime example of a recipient of New Democrat partnership regulatory frameworks, as in the 1996 Telecommunications Act signed by Third Way-DLC Dem Bill Clinton
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“In short, you don’t sound like a capitalist, but someone that has been indoctrinated into class warfare.”
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No, I’m a capitalist. I love capitalism, when it isn’t corrupted and distorted by horrendous imbalances of robber-baron power. I don’t love the capitalism that exists in Russia or China, for example. I don’t love the capitalism of the 19th and early 20th centuries here.
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You sound like you’ve never heard a real movement liberal talking, before. It sounds to me like you’ve never heard somebody like me, who finds more common cause with his customers than he does with, say, the banks.
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That’s not surprising, because the Democratic Party doesn’t let us speak for ourselves very often, because we threaten their relationships with, say, the banks.
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It’s not class warfare I’m advocating, just a more even playing field, so that real, merit-based competition and real, quality-improving innovation can take its rightful place in free-er markets.
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But, if it comes to war, I know whose side I’m on, and it’s not J.P Morgan-Chase’s. Movement liberals are realistic enough to know that players like J.P. Morgan-Chase aren’t on our side, either. I think the past two years are ample proof of that contention.
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“ Where did you go to school? The Karl Marx School of Business.”
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No, the reality-based school of competition.
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That this sort of thing sounds like Marxism to you is indicative of how warped and perverted politics have become in the United States over the past forty years.
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It’s not Marxism. We don’t want the state to own or control the means of production, but we don’t want giant multinationals to own or control the means of production, either.
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The greatest threat to liberty isn’t merely the spying, war-mongering, crony-corrupt security sate, in other words. Movement liberals know that market capturing, choice-eliminating, rent-seeking giant corporations are an equal threat to little people’s freedom to get ahead, when we’re able and motivated enough to try to compete.
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If you want an example of rent-seeking, just look at the side in the net neutrality debate that wants to set up private toll booths on the information highway for businesses like mine, and sell EZ-pass lanes to the biggest players.
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Which company will be competitive after Verizon’s rent-seeking schemes for FIOS are finally able to take advantage of how the ’96 Telecom Act was structured?
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Will it be the little flower shop, with their website that has to stop at tollbooth after tollbooth before reaching the guy who just remembered his anniversary’s browser?
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Or will it be the flower shop that was bought by Amazon.com, who can afford the E-Z pass that lets their site show up on that guy’s computer without being stopped a million times on the way?
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It’s not that Verizon made a faster network, it’s that they made a network that they then divided into two lanes –the toll booth lane, and the EZ-pass lane. The business of generating wealth by building state-sanctioned toll booths, instead of providing good products and services is called rent-seeking, and only market-controlling organizations are in a position to do it.
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That’s a real-world example of rent-seeking playing out right in front of our eyes, liberal. The policy of net neutrality would stop that toll-booth building, and force Verizon to get on with the task of competing by building faster networks, and providing better service, something they’re structurally loathe to do.
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That’s not an MBA from Karl Marx School of Business talking, it’s a degree from Real World in America U.
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Often conservatives –and Third Way centrists- fail to appreciate how things work in the real market, as opposed to the imaginary, magic fairy market.
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It’s not Marxism to take into account reality, it’s liberalism. We don’t want a revolution, we just want to stop getting ripped off all of the time.
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Whoops! Must run…

“I only have like five minutes to respond, because a lot of stuff has come down to the wire, and, as you know, I’m leaving for New Zealand with @lovely_bride (her twitter handle) in a matter of hours.”
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Good God SZ! How fast can you type? It would have taken me at least 25 minutes to finish out what you just typed after that comment.

13 – doneck,

I’m sorry – did somebody advocate boycotting Dow products before you mentioned it?

I may have missed it. Please quote the post here…

14.1 – liberal,

Please quote the post where somebody asked for the list.