Yesterday, the Washington Post published an article with the headline,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072106086.html">Chamber of Commerce losing battles against Obama. The first few paragraphs were written to support the headline's contention that Obama is having his way with the Chamber and the big business lobby industry in general:
Over the past year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent nearly $3 million a week in opposition to President Obama's major agenda items, breaking all previous lobbying records and placing a political bet on the Republican Party. But so far, it's not clear how well the gamble has paid off.
The Chamber's formidable lobbying prowess -- about $150 million spent since Obama took office -- did not stop passage of the administration's two signature achievements: the health-care overhaul and the Wall Street reform bill the president signed into law Wednesday. The nation's largest business group has lost battles over, among other things, student-loan legislation, credit-card reforms and a landmark measure that expands workers' rights to sue for equal pay.
However, the article's fourth and fifth paragraph puts matters in their correct perspective:
But the Chamber has had success in blocking other pieces of Democratic legislation or, in the case of health-care reform and financial regulation, shaping the final bills to the group's liking.
Thomas J. Collamore, the Chamber's senior vice president of communications, highlighted the group's efforts against a pro-union "card check" bill, cap-and-trade climate legislation and a proposed public insurance option.
That's exactly correct: the Chamber (and/or various other business lobbyists) has either successfully watered-down the most
central pieces of Obama's legislative agenda or otherwise defeated them altogether.
Consider:
The Chamber wanted the public option eliminated from the HCR. They won; the public option was stripped from the HCR. That was supposed to be the key component of the HCR, the most important reason for it being called "reform". However, the public option ended up being stripped. The Chamber also wanted generic drug imports from Canada not included in the bill, and, most importantly, they didn't want any revocation of Medicare-D, which allows Big Pharma to charge U.S. taxpayers to its heart's content for providing drugs for Medicare. Obama struck a deal with Big Pharma and voila! Big Pharma (and the Chamber) won. You, the taxpayer lost. And the Medicare program, now swelling with massive deficits thanks to the GOP-created Medicare-D, is in great danger.
The Chamber wanted the EFCA card check nipped-in-the-bud. They won. No EFCA. Working people lost.
The Chamber wanted the financial regulation bill watered-down considerably. They won. There will now be more trillion dollar bailouts.
The Chamber did not want NAFTA renegotiated. Obama very much complied. No jobs for you, sorry.
The Chamber wanted proposed usury laws snuffed out. Obama didn't raise so much as a peep in support of Sheldon Whitehouse's or Bernie Sanders' various legislative attempts to get credit card usury laws passed. The public will now continue to be saddled with life-destroying high interest rates. The GOP and DLC are snickering.
The Chamber wanted cap-and-trade put down. Just yesterday, that's exactly what happened. One of Obama's absolutely key legislative goals was just torpedoed.
The "struggle" between Obama and the business lobby industry seems to be as real as professional wrestling.
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