Richard Trumka
Unions are popularly known as "the folks who brought you the weekend." In contrast, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has the distinction of trying to take away the weekend--along with overtime pay, the minimum wage, Buy America rules, workers' freedom to form unions, child labor standards....The list is long and ugly.
So it's farcical that today the Chamber launched a campaign estimated to run in the
tens of millions of dollars to promote job creation.
The Chamber's campaign originally started out as an attack against financial regulation--until the Chamber found out how strongly U.S. taxpayers support reigning in Big Banks and the financial industry's widespread shady practices. So the Chamber conveniently changed the packaging to purportedly focus on jobs, which in fact the American people desperately need.
Look at who accompanied the Chamber suits while they were announcing their Orweillian-named "free enterprise campaign." As Sam Stein reported
here:
Many of the individuals featured on Wednesday are long-standing donors to Republican candidates and groups that have fought efforts to enhance regulation. And, in one case, the business leader appearing alongside (Thomas) Donohue to decry the interference of government in the market place received business through the benefit of government contracts.
Yet, while millions of America's workers struggle to find jobs in an economy where there are
more than six workers searching for every one job, the Chamber repeatedly opposed extending unemployment insurance. Can't have government interference in the marketplace, after all. Or aid to jobless workers. The same workers the Chamber's smoke-and-mirrors campaign is supposed to be all about.
The Chamber also is joining with Big Banks and financial giants to try and kill a proposed agency that would protect U.S. consumers from being preyed upon by unscrupulous banks, mortgage lenders and many of the same financial institutions that helped create our nation's economic disaster. The Obama administration's proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which this week is
being considered in the House Financial Services Committee, would regulate products such as credit cards and home loans, while ensuring the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission oversaw the $450 trillion "derivatives" market that
sunk the world economy.
The
Chamber is spending
$2 million in attack ads, claiming that the new agency would hamstring even your local butcher from extending you credit for a week. It's the same sorry effort at deception and outright lies that the health insurance industry
now is trying to pull in the debate over health care reform. Tell enough lies and hope someone believes you.
As President Obama said in response to the
Chamber's distortion:
"We've made clear that only businesses that offer financial services would be affected by this agency. I don't know how many of your butchers are offering financial services," Obama said to laughter.
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