{"id":1385,"date":"2009-10-15T16:18:14","date_gmt":"2009-10-15T20:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=1385"},"modified":"2009-10-16T14:18:26","modified_gmt":"2009-10-16T18:18:26","slug":"spitz-ing-in-the-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/1385\/spitz-ing-in-the-wind\/","title":{"rendered":"Spitz-ing in the Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eliot Spitzer doesn\u2019t know when to quit. Laboring on the sidelines of political combat, the former New York\u00a0Governor is out today with a plan to destroy the U.S. Chamber of Commerce<\/a>. Why? Because the corporate executives\u00a0in its ranks disagree with Spitzer\u2019s views on deregulation, tax and fiscal policy, global warming and environmental enforcement, consumer protection, health care reform, and probably just about everything else.<\/p>\n

Of course, it would be one thing if Spitzer was just vying for a hyperlink to The Huffington Post<\/em> with a screed against Wall Street. Unfortunately, he\u2019s a got a plan to silence corporate America\u2019s voice in Washington. Spitzer\u2019s litigation strategy runs like this. The members of the Chamber are corporations (usually) owned by the public. Some of the most influential public stockholders are state government pension funds controlled by a state\u2019s comptroller. In an effort to get publicly owned companies \u201cout of politics,\u201d Spitzer advises that when a state comptroller concludes that \u201cthe Chamber of Commerce has a distorted view of both economic and political policy\u201d the comptroller should demand that every company in which the pension fund owns stock drop its membership in the Chamber. And if the CEO doesn\u2019t agree? Pressure the board to drop the Chamber membership.<\/p>\n

Just one problem. With the economy in a recession, and state pension funds trying to deliver on outrageous union contracts, does Spitzer really believe that an elected official like a comptroller would \u201cdemand\u201d a series of actions specifically designed to weaken a corporation\u2019s ability to make money? Surely Spitzer realizes that the primary motivation for most of the Chamber of Commerce\u2019s policy positions is a desire to increase profits, and thereby dividends? No doubt there is at least one state elected official willing to apply Spitzer\u2019s litigation strategy to grab headlines and perhaps a higher political perch. As usual, though, the people worst effected by such a move would be the same folks for whom Spitzer claims he\u2019s suing to empower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eliot Spitzer doesn\u2019t know when to quit. Laboring on the sidelines of political combat, the former New York\u00a0Governor is out today with a plan to destroy the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Why? Because the corporate executives\u00a0in its ranks disagree with Spitzer\u2019s views on deregulation, tax and fiscal policy, global warming and environmental enforcement, consumer protection, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302,303],"class_list":["post-1385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-eliot-spitzer","tag-u-s-chamber-of-commerce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1385"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1391,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385\/revisions\/1391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}