Obama at war with some lobbyist

Washington Post:

The chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce alleged Sunday that there is a White House campaign of "invectives" and "name-calling" against his organization, and said the business group is eager to ignore the heated rhetoric.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," longtime Chamber lobbyist Bruce Josten said the group's relationship with the White House began to sour after differences of opinion developed about President Obama's health-care and economic agendas.

"Let's be clear, we haven't raised up the Cain. It came from their side of the street," Josten said, referring to the White House, which sits just across Lafayette Park from the Chamber's national headquarters.

"We intend to remain focused on our goals and our responsibilities to represent the American business," Josten said. "We're not going to take the bait and engage in a name-calling campaign here of invectives back and forth. We're going to stay focused."

White House officials contend they are not waging a campaign against the Chamber and they say top officials remain open to discussions with the group's leadership. Members of the administration's business outreach team met last week with business leaders, including Chamber representatives. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on Friday accepted a request to be the keynote speaker at the Chamber's board meeting early next month. And the president invited the Chamber and the National Federation of Independent Business to the White House for an event on Thursday in which he will discuss small business.

"There has, of course, been disagreement on issues like energy and regulatory reform," said deputy press secretary Jen Psaki, referring to the Chamber's vocal opposition to many of the administration's chief policy goals. "But we're going to continue to work with the Chamber on a variety of issues including job creation for large and small businesses."

But despite the efforts of both sides to dial back the tensions over the weekend, the clash between the Chamber and the White House is a clear indication that Obama intends to challenge the power of lobbyists.

...

I don't see him challenging the power of AARP. But, that is because they have sold out to his health care agenda for the most part. In fact, the administration has been eager to tout AARP support even when they have not taken sides on an issue.

Obama has a clear double standard when it comes to lobbyist. If they are on his side on an issue he is all for them. If they resist his agenda, they are evil. In the long run, this is not likely to work out for him.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more