News Release

The President Must Challenge the Chamber of Commerce to Represent American Business not the Right Wing

Statement by Campaign for America's Future's co-director Robert Borosage

Washington, DC – Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future on President Obama’s speech before the Chamber of Commerce today.

“In choosing to speak to the Chamber, President Obama clearly must challenge to Chamber to choose – does it serve the interests of its members or the ideology of the right? The President has called for investments in areas vital to our economy – and to business – in infrastructure, research and development, and education and training. All are essential complements to business. All are scorned by Republican legislators as simply euphemisms for spending and big government. The Chamber once was a champion of greater investment in infrastructure. Will it join the President in his campaign in a meaningful way?

“The President has called for balancing our trade, arguing that surplus countries like China should generate more internal demand, while the US should make more and sell more. Needless to say, this is vital to American business, and requires a transformation of US global trade strategy. The Chamber has been a blind advocate of the old trade agreements that have hollowed out American manufacturing, to the great detriment of American based producers as well as to American workers. Will the Chamber join the president in driving this transformation or oppose efforts to change course?

“The President has championed health care reform that subsidies small businesses to provide health care for their workers, and evens the playing field for companies that do provide health care. The Chamber viciously attacked health care reform, which offers the first steps of getting health care costs under control, the very costs that render American companies less and less competitive. Will the Chamber understand that it is time to move on and push for greater cost reforms, or will it remain loyal to the ideological right in calling for the repeal of health care reform?*

“The president cannot make peace with a Chamber committed to opposing every reform vital for the nation’s economy. But he can use this visit not to pander to the Chamber, but to challenge it – challenging it to represent the companies that are its members, not the ideologues that have been its allies.”

*Read Campaign for America’s Future’s Bill Scher’s challenge to the Chamber: if they spent $86 million to kill health care, why not spend as much to support infrastructure investment?