The Chamber of Commerce is rolling out its "jobs and economy" political initiative today. As Politico reports, the blitz is "designed to drive voters toward '5 Questions to Ask Your Candidates', to be distributed by mail and online to millions of voters."
Here are the five, accompanied by five alternatives tied to reality rather than the Chamber's ideological phantasmagoria:
1. Do you believe that our free enterprise system is currently threatened?
Do you believe that entrenched corporate interests are blocking reforms vital to our country's future?
2. Do you believe that tax increases hurt job creation?
Do you believe that tax cuts to businesses already awash in cash and excess capacity will create jobs or waste money?
3. Do you think that the growth of government at all levels and the deficits that follow negatively impact job creation?
Do you think that deregulation of corporations and banks and the financial high that followed, crashing the economy, and doubling the national debt negatively impacted job creation?
4. Would you deal with the debt and deficit issues through increasing government revenue or decreasing government spending?
Would you deal with debt and deficit issues by building a new foundation for the economy so we can grow our way out of the hole we are in, or with austerity, cutting spending on education, energy, infrastructure, Medicare and Social Security to balance our budget?
5. Do you believe that the uncertainty resulting from pending tax increases, higher government deficits, and more government regulations will hurt the economy?
Do you believe businesses aren't hiring because they don't have customers, or that they are foregoing profitable expansion, fretting about deficits, and possible increases in taxes and regulations?
This country is struggling to respond to the worst downturn since the Great Depression, a direct result of the failed conservative policies that the Chamber of Commerce has advocated for decades. Over the last decade, we lost one in three manufacturing jobs. Inequality reached gilded age levels. CEOs and bankers pocketed million dollar bonuses while cooking the books and gambling on exotic securities, inflating the housing bubble until it burst. Health insurance companies kept a strangle hold on a health care system that costs twice as much as those in other industrial countries, leaves millions uninsured and provides worse health care. Catastrophic climate change went unaddressed. Big Oil and big coal insured that the US would forfeit the lead in the new green industrial revolution that is sweeping the world. Conservatives removed the cop on the corporate beat leading directly to the financial wilding and collapse, the horrors of Massey in West Virginia and BP in the Gulf, the risks of poisoned toys and infected eggs.
One would think that in the ruins, the Chamber of Commerce would have the common decency to reconsider its ideological positions. After all, they have not only been ruinous to workers and the country, they led directly to the economic free fall that devastated businesses. But no. Not one comma has been changed. Not a line changed in the stump speech. Mindless, without shame or sense, blind to the world around it, the Chamber gathers new millions from companies and peddles its poisonous nostrums.
Follow Robert L. Borosage on Twitter: www.twitter.com/borosage
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Hemihead: What on earth are you talking about? What do you mean by ‘condemned
Is there not a Spark in any of your hemispheri
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith:
It is not very unreasonab
Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government
People who have wealth have used economic freedom to attain wealth. This has led to the United States becoming a major wealth creator which in turn has led the United States becoming an economic and military superpower
But, ever since FDR, The United States has been institutin
We now apparently have a large amount of people who think that if someone has far more than they do, it is not fair and that they are somehow entitled to it.. and those that create and obtain wealth are being condemned.
When the accumulati
You assume honesty as a given. That is utterly out of touch with the current reality. We've got a full fledged crony capitalism around here. Didn't you noticed?
The USSR lost the cold war because they blew their national wallet in the egotistica
Cuba's a great example of an economy off kilter - in their case, the government running business. And our economy also off kilter - our case is business running government
7. Have you kicked your dog lately?
Five short, simple, seriously biased questions are about all that most conservati
1. Do you believe that our free enterprise system is currently working for America?
2. Do you believe that tax cuts accelerate job creation? Which cuts and how many jobs?
3. Do you think that ending stimulus would negatively impact job creation?
4. Do you think that fiscal responsibi
5. Do you believe that business owners would rather have temporary tax breaks or customers with disposable income?
6. Do you think that deregulati
7. Do you think that ending extended unemployme
My comment - one word
"Disgree"
The Litany of bad policy, mostly absent regulation
What surprises me is that so many middle and low income Americans want to vote Republican after what GW Bush and Cheney did to the economy, they trashed it. This bunch are looking for a re-run and by the looks of some of the comments there are enough suckers around to fall for it.
It also surprises me that
http://www
I do find it interestin
The left seems to believe that government is always this benign entity that always acts in the common good. Then they are shocked! shocked! to find the millionair
We should have the right to demand accountabi
Both sides need to shut up, stop pointing fingers, and work for real solutions.
The “capitalis
We have two wars to pay for.
Mr. NuclearWar et al ought to man up & Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations:
Our merchants and master-man
It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.
A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessaril
The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all government
It is not very unreasonab
http://www
I think what "progressi
What I see as interestin
Sweet baby Jeezus. Do you like 40 hour work weeks? Paid Vacations? Social Security? Fire Department
They don't want you at the PARTY!
Obama is a helluva sight short of the second coming for the middle class. But he beats sweaty-car
One fact is the Obama administra
The author of this article claims "conservat
Taxes kill jobs, excessive government spending kills the economy. Business is not awash in cash. We actually are on the verge of a depression
Here is what Hillary Clinton said yesterday about excessive government spending:
"I think that our rising debt level poses a national security threat and it poses a national security threat in two ways: it undermines our capacity to act in our own interests and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirabl
Taxes on the *richest* corporatio
Small businesses will not be impacted, only giant corporatio
Government spending that helps the middle class rebound, will help the economy rebound. And what you call "Obamacare
Before the *minimal* health care reform bill passed, private health insurance companies were scrambling to hike costs beyond their already obscene levels, as fast as they could. There has never been a more obvious case of the need for government regulation
As for the need for government regulation in general, anyone who can still argue against that, after the disaster in the Gulf, is either seriously delusional or willfully uncaring, about anything except corporate profits.
Neverthele