Tag: chamber of commerce
Chamber of Commerce Earns Big Pinocchio Nose For False Claim About Build Back Better

Chamber of Commerce Earns Big Pinocchio Nose For False Claim About Build Back Better

Reprinted with permission from The American Independent

The nation's largest corporate lobby is trying to defeat President Joe Biden's $1.75 trillion climate and caregiving infrastructure plan, arguing it would make inflation even worse.

In a new radio ad released Wednesday, the political arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce presses Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to oppose the Build Back Better plan over inflation concerns.

"Higher gas prices and skyrocketing grocery bills are crippling Arizona families. But we count on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to be our voice, someone who will stand up for us. Like when it comes to the reconciliation bill that would add to inflation," a narrator claims.

Constituents are urged to call Sinema and tell her to oppose Build Back Better and "stand up for Arizona families." The White House has argued that the bill will help hundreds of thousands of Arizona families by providing more affordable child care, health care, long-term care, and housing.


Last Friday, the lobbying group demanded Congress halt consideration of the package.

"With prices rising 6.8% over the past year, squeezing budgets for families and small businesses alike, it is time for Congress to hit pause on the reconciliation bill and not add any more fuel to the inflationary fire," Neil Bradley, the group's executive vice president and chief policy officer urged. "Rather than 'building back better'– the reconciliation bill will just be bringing back bad inflation."

The lobbying behemoth, which represents many of the nation's largest corporations, does not like the fact that Build Back Better would be partially funded by collecting more in revenue from the nation's largest corporations.

It argues, "The proposed tax increases, including a new corporate minimum tax on book income, a new tax on stock buybacks, and tax increases on U.S. business income earned abroad, will harm the recovery and hamstring America as we work to compete globally, especially with China."

But it has focused much of its public opposition on the idea that inflation is high and the package "will make it worse." In November, the group published a roundup of "non-partisan and center left experts" who have stated Build Back Better would "add to inflation over the next year."

The inflation argument has been a common talking point for Republicans in Congress and their dark-money backers. But the opposite is likely true.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has argued the plan would be an "antidote" to long-term inflation, increasing economic capacity and offsetting its costs with new revenue or spending cuts.

Nobel Prize-winning economists and major financial ratings agencies have concurred, saying it will likely have a negligible effect on inflation in the short term and could curb it over a longer period of time.

Even many of the economic experts the group cited while warning of inflation have publicly said Build Back Better will not significantly fuel inflation.

Jason Furman, a former Council of Economic Advisers chair, wrote a November 15 Wall Street Journalopinion piece urging passage of Build Back Better to address the economy's "chronic problems"

"Build Back Better would have a minuscule impact on inflation over the medium and long term," he argued. "The potential short-term effects of Build Back Better on inflation are dwarfed by the good it would do."

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who has been frequently cited by congressional Republicans as an inflation soothsayer, has also endorsed the package.

He wrote in a November Washington Post piece that it "would spend less over 10 years than was spent on stimulus in 2021. Because that spending is offset by revenue increases and because it includes measures such as child care that will increase the economy's capacity, Build Back Better will have only a negligible impact on inflation."

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics, told Reuters in November that Build Back Better and the now-enacted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act "do not add to inflation pressures, as the policies help to lift long-term economic growth via stronger productivity and labor force growth, and thus take the edge off of inflation."

In a Fox Business interview on Wednesday, Zandi said "the inflation we're observing now, the high inflation — that has nothing to do with fiscal policy, that has nothing to do with the Build Back Better agenda." He added that it would lift long-term economic growth by "raising labor force participation, so lowering the cost of work."

The House passed its version of Build Back Better on Nov. 19, despite unanimous GOP opposition. The bill is now pending in the Senate.

A spokesperson for the organization did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.

"Help Wanted" sign

Stop Shaming Workers About Their Relief Checks -- And Give Them A Raise

Reprinted with permission from Press Run

Workers suddenly enjoy newfound clout in the emerging post-pandemic economy. With lots of employers desperate to fill a stockpile of new positions as retail outlets spring back to life in a vaccinated America, a short-term worker shortage has emerged. Republicans and their business community friends are furious, blaming a lazy workforce, and the press is helping their cause by shining a spotlight on employer complaints, while paying far less attention to employee priorities.

Republicans are loudly braying that President Joe Biden is to blame for the sea of "Help Wanted" signs, as GOP governors across the country take the extraordinary step of cutting off additional unemployment benefits for their struggling citizens. They're refusing the funds even though the benefits, $300 a week until September, are paid for entirely by the federal government, as part of the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package signed into law.

"We are currently facing a labor shortage created in large part by the supplemental unemployment payments that the federal government provides," South Carolina's Republican governor announced, while turning down millions in aid, much of which would have been spent by residents inside red states, thereby boosting local economies.

Republicans have been cheered on by the Chamber of Commerce and other deep-pocketed interest groups which are demanding the government somehow make people go back to work -- often for low, stagnant wages, under poor working conditions, and while punching the clock for huge corporate employers that pocket billions in profits. (The median hourly pay for American fast-food workers in 2020 was $11.47, the same year McDonald's posted $5 billion in profits.)

First off, rarely have we seen an unproven economic hunch like this treated so seriously by the press. The vast majority of the news coverage simply accepts as fact that government benefits might be keeping people from returning to work. Even though that same coverage rarely includes a single piece of empirical evidence to back up the claim. (Economists have found no proof to support it.)

Writing in the Washington Post, Megan McArdle announced unequivocally that the $300 stimulus checks were "holding back the economic recovery," by giving people a strong disincentive to work. McArdle's proof? "Anecdotally," she was sure it was true.

Over and over, that pro-business talking point has been echoed in local news coverage as well. When WKNB in Youngstown, Ohio, reported on the Republican governor cutting off employment benefits, only business owners who supported the move were quoted, no workers. Same with a local report from the Albany Times Union in New York, which quoted a restaurant manager blaming the worker shortage on the government for "giving them all the money to stay home." No workers were interviewed.

That GOP narrative misses an important story unfolding as America emerges from the pandemic: Long-held assumptions about how we live are being scrambled.

For instance, as more schools nationwide reopen, millions of schoolchildren are opting not to return to in-person learning, just like millions of Americans, for now, are currently choosing not to return to the workforce. If the claim is that workers are staying home because the government is paying them in $300 weekly checks, what's the reason students are staying home, since there's no federal financial incentive to do so?

Answer: Priorities and lifestyles changed during the pandemic.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch recently nailed it in a column:

A year of lockdown has scrambled our ways of thinking about the workplace and where our paycheck fits into the broader meaning of life, our concept of what a job is worth, and — and here's where things get really interesting — who holds the upper hand? For the first time in decades, American workers are wondering ... who's the boss?

Maybe the glut of low-paying jobs isn't a sign of American slothfulness — it's a growing sign of worker awareness and self-preservation.

Over the last four decades, worker productivity in the U.S. has increased nearly 70 percent, but pay for hourly workers has only gone up 11 percent. People are working more efficiently, producing bigger profits for companies, and not being properly compensated.

That's the more important story, and it's going largely ignored by the mainstream media, which seem more interested in helping Republicans shame workers, as they deny additional unemployment benefits to two million people in red states.

Meanwhile, the press frets over the plight of employers while breezing past worker priorities. The New YorkTimes last week did a long, front-page piece looking at businesses in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, struggling to find workers and stressing that government benefits are keep applicants away. The article featured the owners of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. But how much was the brewery willing to pay employees as owners complained that they couldn't fill their slots? That's important context in terms of how businesses are responding to the workforce shortage. If they refuse to significantly raise the rates they pay, should readers be sympathetic to their hiring plight and their claims that the Biden administration is responsible for the shortage?

But the Times article never reported how much the brewery paid. Down at the final sentence in the article, readers were informed, "When asked if it was raising pay, Dogfish Head said it offered competitive wages for the area."

Shorter answer: No, the brewery likely isn't paying higher wages. But the brewery is complaining about its worker shortage — a complaint the media gladly amplify.

Trump Is Running Against His Own Party On Trade

Trump Is Running Against His Own Party On Trade

By Ginger Gibson

Presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s scathing criticism of his stance on trade, highlighting divisions within the Republican Party that threaten unity ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

At a campaign rally in Maine on Wednesday, Trump called the nation’s largest business association “controlled totally by various groups of people who don’t care about you whatsoever.”

He said new trade deals should be negotiated because foreign countries are taking advantage of America.

“Every country that we do business with us look at us as the stupid people with the penny bank,” Trump said Wednesday at the rally in Bangor, Maine.

The Washington-based lobbying group, which represents the United States’ largest companies and business interests, is typically a reliable backer of Republican policies.

But on Tuesday it took issue with Trump’s vocal opposition to trade deals, calling his proposals “dangerous” ideas that would push the United States into another recession.

Trump said the Chamber’s argument that his policies would cause a trade war were incorrect because the United States was already at a deficit.

“We’re already losing the trade war, we lost the trade war,” Trump said. “Nothing can happen worse than is happening now.”

In speeches on Tuesday, Trump called for renegotiating or scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, calling it a job killer, and reiterated opposition to the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership among the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries. He also lambasted China’s trade and currency policies.

The Chamber has consistently backed trade deals.

The public squabbling between the presumptive Republican nominee and the business group was unusual, one of a series of reminders that Trump still struggles to unite his party behind his campaign. The Republicans and many business leaders tend to share policy goals and work in lockstep, and many business leaders have traditionally been big donors to Republican candidates.

So far, the Chamber’s political action committee has donated $134,000 to federal candidates or their committees, with $127,500 of that total going to Republicans, according to U.S. government campaign finance records.

Billionaire Republican donor Paul Singer, who bankrolled an effort to try to defeat Trump during the campaign’s nominating phase, said on Wednesday that a Trump presidency and his trade positions would almost certainly lead to a global depression.

“The most impactful of the economic policies that I recall him coming out for are these anti-trade policies,” Singer said during a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, according to CNBC.

But opposing trade deals has proven a winning strategy for Trump among voters concerned about the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Art Laffer, an economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan who supports Trump, said he did not like the tone of Trump’s speech on Tuesday but thought it was an improvement over his past comments on trade.

“It’s not terribly alarming to me,” Laffer said. “I didn’t see any 45 percent tariffs across the board. …

“I saw negotiating better trade deals rather than throwing away all the trade deals we have now. He points out the flaws in these trades, and that’s all true,” Laffer said. “I don’t like the tone of it, but I dislike the tone less today than I did three weeks ago.”

Peter Navarro, a Trump trade policy adviser, defended the candidate’s position.

“Here’s the central point to understand: The White House has been utterly and completely soft on China’s illegal trade practices,” said Navarro, a professor at the University of California, Irvine. “The status quo is the worst of all possible worlds for the United States.”

Trump also took fire from for his positions on trade from Democrats.

In a call organized by rival Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, U.S. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a former businessman and tech entrepreneur, said that while the country needed to do a better job protecting workers, more resources should be put into training them for a new economy.

He also noted that it was unusual to see a Republican standard-bearer and the Chamber divide.

“You’ve really got a special circumstance when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce” responded to Trump’s economic plan with a “full-fledged onslaught,” Warner said. “No one could have predicted this kind of election season.”

Clinton held no public campaign events on Wednesday but did announce she would appear next week with President Barack Obama, the first time this year that he and his former Secretary of State have campaigned together.

 

(Reporting by Ginger Gibson, Grant Smith, Amanda Becker, Alana Wise and Emily Stephenson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Photo: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures while delivering a speech at the Alumisourse Building in Monessen, Pennsylvania, U.S., June 28, 2016. REUTERS/ Louis Ruediger

Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Remarks Force GOP Reckoning On Immigration

Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Remarks Force GOP Reckoning On Immigration

As Donald Trump faces corporate boycotts over his recent comments deriding Mexican immigrants, his remarks are also dividing Republicans, and their conservative constituencies, by forcing them to reconcile their “tough-on-immigration,” “secure-the-border” rhetoric with their hopes of garnering more Latino votes than the Democrats in 2016.

In his June announcement launching his presidential campaign, Trump said: “When Mexico sends its people [to the United States], they’re not sending their best…. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Republicans, and especially other candidates seeking the GOP presidential nomination, have been forced to state publicly whether they stand with Trump on immigration policy.

Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, called Trump’s comments “not helpful,” while former Florida governor Jeb Bush distanced himself from Trump, saying he disagreed with Trump’s comments. Texas senator Ted Cruz recently said on Fox News that Trump “speaks the truth.”

New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who recently announced his own presidential bid, said Trump’s comments were “wholly inappropriate.”

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who is not running for president, defended Trump’s remarks, saying critics had taken his statements out of context.

Conservative business interests are singing a different tune. In a June 30 statement, touting the entrepreneurial credentials of the United States’ immigrant community, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce said Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants represent “an extreme and exclusionary position that has no basis in fact and is completely inappropriate in our national political discourse.”

Joining Univision, NBC, and Macy’s boycotts of Trump businesses, the Hispanic Chamber said it will not consider Trump hotels as possible locations for its 2016 National Convention in Miami, Florida, or its 2016 Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C. Likely fearing consumer boycotts, the business community is running from Trump, seeking to push him further away from the Republican mainstream, while Trump, ever the consummate businessman, is breaking ties with any company that seeks to blacklist him.

Criticizing Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) for blaming immigrants for a declining middle class in the United States, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has said, “Politicians promote misleading facts about immigration to rile up their political base.” The Chamber might as well have been talking about Trump.

But by playing to the GOP’s right-wing base, Trump’s comments are forcing Republicans to reconsider their hardline stances on securing the border and not offering “amnesty” to undocumented immigrants, causing splits within the GOP over immigration. Republicans want (and desperately need) to court Latino voters nationally, so while moderate Republicans are trying not to alienate potential GOP voters, Trump and the Tea Party faithful prefer sticking with their nativist, scorched-earth rhetoric.

Which explains why Democrats are rejoicing that Trump is becoming the face of the Republican Party. “His outlandish rhetoric and skill at occupying the national spotlight are also proving to be dangerously toxic for the GOP brand, which remains in the rehabilitation stage after losing the 2012 presidential race,” reports The Washington Post.

In 2014, 62 percent of Latinos reported voting Democratic in their congressional district race, according to the Pew Research Center. And in the 2012 presidential election, President Obama had a 44-point advantage over Republican challenger Mitt Romney when it came to Latino voters.

If Republicans hope to win the White House in 2016, winning over more Latino voters will certainly play a large role. The problem for the GOP is not just limited to one well-known Republican candidate’s dramatic, outspoken racism. More so, it’s the fact that Trump’s stance has shined a spotlight on the party’s deeply entrenched xenophobia, and now every candidate has to acknowledge it.

More and more, it doesn’t seem possible for Republicans to have their border-wall-and-deportations cake, and eat more Latino votes, too.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr