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Friday, March 29, 2024

The U.S.Chamber of Commerce’s Bill Comes Due

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Joe Biden’s address to Congress was slippery as soap, but on one issue the president was extremely direct: He’s coming after corporate America. Oh, and he sends his thanks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for helping make that possible.

The nation’s premier business lobby didn’t really get a shout-out in the speech, but it deserved one. Mr. Biden spent his address pitching nearly $4 trillion in spending, most of it to be funded by huge hikes in the corporate tax rate, capital-gains and dividends levies, income taxes on small-business pass-throughs, and even death taxes. It’s a dagger pointed at the heart of free enterprise.

This proposed business taxathon is a real threat only because Democrats control both the House and the Senate. And Nancy Pelosi’s narrow hold on power (Democrats currently have a 218-212 majority) is partly a result of the chamber’s August decision to endorse the re-election bids of 23 freshman Democrats, thereby reassuring voters that they had the free-market seal of approval. Fifteen of the 23 won.

Business leaders, local chambers and Republicans across the country were furious. Twenty of those 23 representatives had voted for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a union giveaway that would abolish right-to-work states; 18 had voted for a $15 federal minimum wage; and most had made clear they’d happily repeal the 2017 corporate tax reform. Nearly all these Democrats were in crucial swing races. How could such antibusiness Democrats rank high enough on the Chamber of Commerce scorecard to earn its endorsement? The chamber changed its formula, awarding new points for “leadership” and “bipartisanship.”

Critics saw the chamber’s endorsements as a cynical attempt to curry favor with Mrs. Pelosi. If so, it was a bad bet. She now presides over the slimmest Democratic majority since World War I.

It’s therefore worth noting that of the 15 Chamber-endorsed Democrats who won re-election, six barely eked out victory, winning by 3.3 points or less. Iowa Democrat Cynthia Axne won by only 6,000 votes (1.4% of the total vote) in a district won by Donald Trump. All of these Democrats have already been named to the party’s “Frontline” program, which will provide extra resources to its most vulnerable 2022 members. Meaning they are—and were—eminently beatable.

The chamber would note that it didn’t spend money in these races—though it did spend a lot in the Senate fight—and there’s no way of knowing if its endorsements made the difference. But the Democrats certainly felt it did. As Mrs. Axne told NPR in September: “Having an endorsement from the chamber showing that I’m in support of issues that keeps them alive and strong, I think it does make a difference to them.” What we do know: A Speaker Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t be entertaining tax hikes.

The more charitable explanation for the endorsements is that the chamber succumbed to that classic (if naive) business mindset: It’s better to have a seat at the table than to wind up on the menu. By endorsing some “moderate” Democrats, the group hoped to keep them on its side on key issues, or at least have the access to modulate bad proposals. For examples of how this appeasement usually works out, see the energy executives who signed up to work with the Obama administration on “sensible” climate policies and got the Clean Power Plan. Or the drug makers who supported ObamaCare only to watch the administration betray them on price controls and patent protections. Businesses that sit at the table rather than fight tend to end up as breakfast, brunch, snack, lunch, high tea, dinner and dessert.

Which may happen now. The chamber repeatedly laid out its concerns about Mr. Biden’s proposed Covid “rescue” bill, including its overly broad unemployment benefits and stimulus checks. Every one of those 15 endorsed Democrats voted for the bill. The chamber is already leading opposition to Mr. Biden’s corporate-tax hike (proposed to pay for “infrastructure”), and presumably will publicly oppose additional tax proposals released this week as part of Mr. Biden’s “families” plan. Yet so far not a single chamber-endorsed Democrat has ruled out voting for business tax hikes.

The chamber’s chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, says the group has now talked to all its Democratic endorsees and remains hopeful they will work with Republicans to come up with some way other than a corporate rate hike to pay for infrastructure—say, gas taxes or revolving loan funds. He says the lobby is only now beginning outreach on the latest Biden tax proposals, and points out that the chamber still has its scorecard: “They can earn the endorsement and lose the endorsement.”

True, and by that point it may not matter. All it will take is one reconciliation bill in this all-Democratic Washington to saddle American business with crushing new burdens, which won’t be reversed any time soon. U.S. business can play politics, or it can stand on principle. The former rarely pans out well.

Source: Google News

#chamber of commerce #chambers #chamber news #business #

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Skyhigh.Vip is a global institutional investor with vast interest in Arts / Construction / Education / Business Services / E-Sports and various other growth industries.

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