The Chamber of Commerce spends corporate money (like that of Murchoch’s News Corp, Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Alpha Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Aegon) to fight health care, financial regulation and environmental/climate change regulation

I’m liberal. I’m also pro-business. I’m a moderate on most issues, and know that sustainability—both environmentally and financially—is vital to a healthy, happy society. So I was shocked—shocked—to read this article in the NY Times.

Our local Boulder Chamber of Commerce is great, and full of good people working for important issues. But, are local chambers represented on a national level, where the CEO “Mr. Donohue was paid $3.7 million in 2008, and has access to a corporate jet and a chauffeur…”?

NY Times:

…while the [US] chamber boasts of representing more than three million businesses, and having approximately 300,000 members, nearly half of its $140 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors.

So I was shocked to read that the national Chamber of Commerce, which of course supports and is supported by local Chambers,

1. Makes no apologies for keeping the identities of its big corporate sponsors secret

2. pushes for more influence for big corporations in politics

3. supports Republicans 90% of the time—and has spent more than any time in history in doing so. “…a review of the nearly 70 chamber-produced ads found that 93 percent of those that have run nationwide that focus on the midterm elections either support Republican candidates or criticize their opponents.”

Excerpt from NY Times article:

Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.

Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.

And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon…read the rest here.

Relephant images:

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