I was about to make a snide post about how local chambers of commerce don’t necessary line up with the national chamber but…
whoa! It is the U. S. Chamber!
I’m not totally surprised, having read a a little about how infrastructure was the only things the Chamber and major Labor groups agreed with, and infrastructure banking (which 30/10’s financing model closely resembles) would seem to be a pretty business-friendly manner of investing. For once it’s actually refreshing to see the Chamber standing up for its own interests, rather than sacrificing self-interest to ideology along the lines of Rick Scott.
Good luck getting it through the House, though—while I thought I’d disagree with the new House on everything, I thought they’d be able to wreak havoc with some degree of competence. Evidently this isn’t so, as one congressional staffer told
washingtonmonthly.com (my emphases):
Quote:
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It's becoming clearer and clearer everyday that Republicans in the House have no connection to reality and are willing to burn it all down. Staff have sat dumbfounded over the last few days watching the floor, which no media is reporting on, to see how disconnected Republicans are from basic math.
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So the new congressmen are astounding even their staff with their ideological rigidity and lack of foresight. To some extent this is also due to self-interest—I’m sure that at this point most of them are more worried about a kochbot primary challenger, like the one who defeated conservative, albeit willing to talk and work with the other side, Senator Bob Bennett of Utah (who, incidentally, was instrumental in funding TRAX). Still, these guys just passed a funding resolution which writes its own attack ads for 2012, so I’m pretty sure that they’re more blinded by ideology than anything else. They aren’t about to be lobbied into place, even if the Chamber of Commerce is doing the lobbying.
Of course, this is just for the continuing resolution, not the full FY 2012 budget. Looking at the stuff Mica is putting out, it looks like there’s a lot more room for reasonable discussion to happen and for something like 30/10 to continue, if at a slower pace than under the last Congress. However, given how chaotic the past week has been in congress, I don’t have a lot of confidence in Boehner’s ability to keep his caucus under control and get meaningful legislation passed.
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