Election Day is now two weeks behind us. The analyses and recriminations were many, and the "What does it mean?" debates will likely continue until the next election, when they will begin anew. Such is life for those whose job it is to analyze and propound on such things. But for us, as the voice of business and free enterprise, we don't have the luxury of analysis and navel-gazing, for on so many fronts we are a nation at risk and we must be about the business of moving forward.
When we say we are a nation at risk -- borrowing a phrase famously used to describe the deplorable condition of our nation's schools -- we mean that our economy remains in a damaged state. We know how fragile this economy is because we are in touch with our members, business large and small across the country, every day. Today, our economy is simply not expanding fast enough to reduce unemployment and create 20 million jobs -- the growth we need to get us back to where we were before we plunged into the deepest recession in the post-war era. It would be all too easy to backslide. We have many ills to confront at once. We must stem the rising tide of regulations, address our faltering schools, modernize our crumbling infrastructure, and rein in skyrocketing deficits. We need a sensible trade policy that will spur exports and create jobs here at home.
The American people don't want status quo, they want their problems solved. To that end, we will be focused on the following areas going forward:
Internally, we plan to secure the chamber's fiscal future, completing a capital campaign with the goal of having $100 million in working capital in time for our 100th anniversary in April 2012. This will allow the chamber -- one of America's most highly-rated and positively-viewed brands -- to be protected and strengthened.
We were vigorous and active participants in the election which has now passed us. But now that the election is over, the time for governing, for problem solving, has come. We have said before that we intend to work with any party that will stand with us on our agenda. We can help our nation solve its problems -- beginning with the overriding challenge of putting America back to work. We intend to begin that important work today. It can't wait.
Bob Edgar: Whose Side Is Your Senator on?
Michael B. Keegan: Known Unknowns: The Power of Secret Money in the 2010 Elections
Mike Elk: ABC's Amanpour Refuses to Ask Honeywell CEO About Locked Out Workers
Apt title that raises interesting questions. Why is the Nation at risk? Who put it at risk? Who is going to build "the road ahead". The Chamber? Corporations? The Chinese? Will only 1% of Americans be allowed to use it?
Who gave the Chamber of Commerce the millions of dollars they spent on the mid term elections? Why do they refuse to divulge that information?
Citizens United was a game changer that Congress refuses to address. Why does any corporation have a right to "buy" an election? (In America today, over 9 times out of ten, the candidate that spends the most, wins) They don't even have to be American corporations. What does this say about our election process? The flow of hidden cash into the 2010 elections was staggering. The Chamber has taken willing part in this process. What does that say about the Chamber?
The American revolution came about over taxation without representation. But there was another factor involved. Corporate corruption. Why was tea chosen? Mostly because England passed tea tax, but then passed another law exempting a large British corporation (The East Indies Company) from having to pay it. Can we say unfair advantage?
Corporations, like religion, shouldn't mix in government. How long, I wonder, until Congress and the Chamber learn this valuable lesson?
When you follow the money it leads you to the truth, ugly as that may sometimes be.
The American party will demand that America produce the very best in the world. We can sell to the world if it is the very finest in quality and workmanship. That is our market. Our cars need to be better then any imports in comfort and mileage yet cost equal to take away their market. Are you awake, big 3 because in 2013 you had better have on the floor a model that gets sixty miles a gallon and is an equal to a Lexus. We can not, the chamber suggest, compete with the daily things China, India or the east makes. The American party is going to change free trade to equal trade. America is a huge market. What happens is it is made by slave labor and government fixed costs then sold in America at ten times that cost at wholesale then marked up. The change will be the wholesale costs will match American made costs. Equal trade in America. Actually fair trade for Americans.
The Chamber of Commerce is telling the American worker to just go starve someplace because honesty, integrity, hard work, and paying your taxes are no longer American Values. Profit is the Chamber's only value, and it doesn't care if America ends up a third-world nation.
It is surprising how many Americans have no backbone, and are willing to be lead around by the nose by the establishment. This type of an Wall Street lead, elitist government for and by the rich, would not have survived back in the old days when men and women had a real backbone. So many are just willing to accept it as normal...
less taxes for the wealthy, less regulation and more outsourcing
isn't that the deginition of insanity - tryng the same things over and over and expecting different results?
Thanks for nothing...this is meaningless...anyone who pretends to address unemployment without admitting that the problem is multinational corporations who have offshored close to 14 million American jobs is just a bogus peice of nothingness...
GE takes subsidies - taxpayer dolars - has accounting slight of hand tricks and pays no federal taxes and thanks this great country by taking it's employment to cheap labor markets. That is what is going on. GE has a free ride in the US and pays this great country back by working non-stop on ways to destroy the country by crushing local employment. GE right now is planning to offshore thousands of medical jobs to India...
This will come aorund and bite these nasty companies in the butt - they are being very short sighted when they decide that they can grow their own wealth at the expense of the counry that made them rich and strong to begin with. They've played our govt and the taxpayers for fools and their will be a price to be paid for that somewhere down the line.
Not a serious detail in it, only vague generalities and "we're gonna have speakers at meetings" sorts of proposals. For example, we're gonna "double exports." How? Not by making a whole lot of things the rest of the world wants to buy at a competitive price, but through a "major education and advocacy initiative to change the debate on trade." Oh yeah, and "rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure," but whatever you do, don't raise taxes or borrow any money to do it. After all, how much can America's infrastructure actually cost to repair? We can probably handle it with a bake sale.
I love how all of a sudden "government debt" is a huge concern of these folks, who hardly chirped a word about it during the eight long years of W.
Ditto for putting people back to work. Suddenly, they're gonna get on this "today," because "it can't wait." Do you seriously mean to tell me that these supposed leaders of businesses nationwide didn't notice unemployment until yesterday?
Good grief, what a bunch of smug, self-congratulatory dinosaurs.
So corporations can get away with anything just short of murder
"Addressing the debt crisis -- Undertaking an "economic risk assessment" to identify threats and vulnerabilities to the explosion of government debt, and act on these risks through tax and entitlement reform and deficit reduction measures."
As if paying next to 0 corporate taxes, outsourcing american jobs and wall street didnt have anything to do with this
"Defending free speech for businesses -- The chamber will redouble its efforts to defend our First Amendment rights to lobby, communicate with voters, communicate with employees, and do so without harassment or undue restrictions."
lol what a joke =/
What do want in trade for the current corporate welfare payments?
What do we workers have to give up so that our jobs won't be exported out from under us?
Hey, i know- you keep the welfare from us tax payers- and you guys quit sending our jobs and factories elsewhere!
pretty cool, eh?