The New York Times blows a hole in the myth that the US Chamber of Commerce represents hundreds of thousands of Main Street businesses across America; in fact, only a handful of big corporations are bankrolling the lobby group and its gigantic electioneering operation. NYT researchers pierced the secrecy around the Chamber’s donors, at least enough to discover that a mere 45 corporations (Dow Chemical, Prudential, Chevron, Goldman Sachs, etc.) provided about half of the Chamber’s $140 million income in 2008. Campaign Money Watch blasted the underlying fraud of the Chamber’s portrayal of itself as a friend of economic prosperity by exposing the number of jobs exported under Chamber-supported federal policies and by calling for passage of the Fair Elections Now Act to challenge the Chamber’s political clout.
1-888-OUR-VOTE|info@democracy-nc.org
Is that $140 million?
Thanks, Leo
We might also want to specify that these millions in “income” are donations, not payments, from those giant corporations — although, come to think of it, the services rendered do suggest an employer-employee relationship, don’t they? And at least to me, as long as the Chamber keeps the sources of these large donations secret, it doesn’t seem unfair to think of it as soft “money-laundering”. I recommend that your readers take in the whole NYT article.