Count me among the many who would prefer that Eliot Spitzer not show his face again in the public realm. Perhaps it’s just the puritan in me. I’m also not happy about the publications, cable news shows, and commentators who have gleefully facilitated his rehabilitation–Slate, which gave him an entire column, included. If Spitzer were a particularly thoughtful analyst or gifted writer, I might give them leeway. But he’s neither.
Nevertheless, credit should go where credit is due, and Spitzer deserves a tip o’ the hat for his most recent column, calling out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its ridiculously ideological lobbying efforts, supposedly on behalf of all American business. Granted, there are some policies that help businesses more than others; they generally prefer lower taxes and less regulation. And yet on tough questions there are many different possible positions for the business community to take: Is national health insurance a good or bad idea? Is climate change legislation desirable? As the bien-pensants say, these are matters on which thoughtful people will disagree. But not the Chamber: It rigidly advocates a partisan, pro-GOP stance, even when many members think it’s bad for business–which is why several have left the Chamber in recent weeks.
Spitzer nails it when he writes
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the self-proclaimed voice of business in Washington—has been wrong on virtually every major public-policy issue of the past decade: financial deregulation, tax and fiscal policy, global warming and environmental enforcement, consumer protection, health care reform …
The chamber remains an unabashed voice for the libertarian worldview that caused the most catastrophic economic meltdown since the Great Depression. And the chamber’s view of social justice would warm Scrooge’s heart.
Just naming the beast is an important step; too few people, even in Washington, appreciate the pernicious impact of Chamber lobbying. Spitzer goes a bit too far down the rabbit hole when he proffers, as a solution, the use of shareholder votes to influence the Chamber’s publicly held member corporations. Ain’t gonna happen–and, in any case, it’s not the members per se who are the problem, but the leadership, which under President Tom Donahue and chief lobbyist R. Bruce Josten have systematically isolated any voice except the libertarian right’s.
Still, at least Spitzer is naming names. Now let’s see what else he can do.
