What, US Chamber of Commerce, inveterate supporter of all things Republican and serial denouncer of President Obama and the Democrats for being anti-business, now you are having second thoughts about the monster you helped create? Well cry me a river …
On Wednesday, Obama is hosting chief executives from the nation’s 19 biggest financial firms. Moreover, the Chamber of Commerce has sent a letter to Congress signed by about 250 business groups urging no shutdown and warning against a debt ceiling crisis that they say could lead to an economically disastrous default. […]
The letter circulated by the Chamber of Commerce urges lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling “in a timely manner and remove any threat to the full faith and credit of the United States government.” It also acknowledges Republican fears over the unsustainable growth of major benefit programs such Medicare and Social Security and the need for a more business-friendly tax system.
But in a rejection of the tactics of House Speaker John Boehner, the letter urges Congress to pass first a short-term spending bill, then raise the debt ceiling, “and then return to work on these other vital issues.”
Hey, you guys are big boys right? You had to know that one potential consequence of supporting the most radical extreme elements of the conservative right would be that the very people you helped put in Congress just might decide they didn’t need to follow your advice, and that they were free to follow their “principles,” i.e., killing the Federal government by any means necessary. You had to know that you risked creating an “unstable” business climate. Heck, you’ve known of this risk since 2011, when the tehadists first pulled this crap, and it ended in a downgrade of federal debt instruments issued by the US Treasury. But that didn’t stop you in 2012 from pulling out all the stops to defeat President Obama and the Democrats, now did it?
Now you want the folks you put in power to follow your lead after years of them telling you exactly what they intended to do – shutdown the government, shrink it, cut it into little pieces and flush it down the toilet? Must seem odd that they aren’t kissing your ring as you thought they would. In the words of the immortal Jim Nabors:
Weren’t you listening to what they were saying, or did you just think they would do what bought-and-paid-for politicians traditionally do: roll over for you and take your orders like good doggies? Well, I guess you misunderestimated these Tea Party extremists just a tad. They took your money and are now spitting in your face, just like you have spat in the face of ordinary Americans for decades in order to create the highest income inequality in our nation’s history. So don’t complain when the dog you gave that bone to comes back to bite you in the a$$, because we have no sympathy for you and your billion dollar profits and multi-million dollar salaries.
You got your bailouts, your Federal Reserve easing, your off-shore tax havens, your union busting, your non-prosecution by the Feds for tanking the US economy and making out like bandits. And it was a Democratic administration (admittedly in league with the Republicans and Big Business Dems) that granted you all these favors, and yet you wanted more and you didn’t want it from a Democratic president or Congress. Instead, you worked your tails off to elect Mitt “I’ve never seen a company that didn’t deserve the Bain Capital Treatment” Romney and for Republican domination of both houses of Congress. You wanted to kill health care reform regardless of the cost to our economy and to the lives of millions of Americans. Well, sorry boys. Must feel strange that your best hope to keep the economy from slipping into another Great Repression/Depression is that half-white Democratic occupant of the Oval Office who you so love to hate. Until now, that is.
Have fun at your meeting today with President Obama. I’m sure he will.
