Why You Should Ignore Chamber of Commerce Bleating About Free Enterprise

Washington has entered the silly season with the Chamber of Commerce's talk that the "free enterprise system truly at risk." See this for what it is: a set of talking points that the business lobby is rolling out before November elections.

It's worth remembering that this kind of talk has a long pedigree in American history. FDR was a socialist as well, judging from contemporary critiques. In a 1964 speech inspired by Medicare, Ronald Reagan famously intoned that America had reached "a time for choosing" its trajectory: free enterprise or collectivism. However, the economy is much larger than it was in the 1930s or 1960s, so we should probably look for some other explanations here. The Chamber is really cranking it up. Big event this week across Lafayette Square from the White House. An open letter to President Obama. Earlier this year, it hired Stanton Anderson, a longtime Washington lobbyist (for, among other clients, the Japanese computer chip industry) to gin up a campaign for the allegedly besieged culture of free enterprise in this country.

But the real information you need, courtesy Bruce Josten, the Chamber's chief lobbyist: it has raised a war chest of $75 million for the Chamber to pump into fall congressional races -- issue ads, political contributions, that sort of thing. In case you were wondering, the point is to elect Republicans. Nothing illegal in any of this, mind you. As Michael Kinsley wrote a while back, the real scandal isn't whats illegal, but what's legal.

Obama has put free enterprise at risk? Take a look at this nice piece from Matt Miller at the Center for American Progress as to why Obama ain't a disaster for business. Short version: if that were true, then he would have nationalized banks, let auto companies fall apart and refused to make a public option for health insurance a dealbreaker issue on health care.

The Chamber is creating the PR artillery to back up its real agenda: pushing candidates in the fall. It's starting now, softening the ground with white-hot rhetoric with little relationship to the truth. By August, it'll be spending that $75 million freely. And every time the media parrots it to the public, it'll be doing the Chamber's bidding -- for free, no less.

Image via U.S. Chamber of Commerce Related:

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