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Why Democrats Can't Be the Party of Business
Bad fuckin' idea all the way around, if ya ask me.
Why Democrats Can't Be the Party of Business
By Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
16 July 14
he business lobby’s very public exasperation with House Republicans has given Democrats in Congress an idea: They can lure the business lobby to switch sides. The basic underlying calculation makes a certain degree of sense. The most recent controversies in Congress have all entailed Republicans defying corporate America’s preferences — by killing immigration reform, threatening the Export-Import Bank, and blocking any long-term solution to highway funding. “It is a trifecta reminder of how the tea party has taken over the Republican Congress,” says Democrat Steve Israel, who, reports The Wall Street Journal, has “stepped up his courtship of business donors.” Likewise, Senator Charles Schumer pleads, “From the Export-Import bank to tax extenders to immigration reform, Democrats and business are on the same side on a range of issues. The Tea Party has dragged the Republican Party so far to the right that business is now closer to mainstream Democrats than Republicans.” But the Democratic courtship of the business lobby has not worked, and it isn’t going to.
It is certainly true that the business lobby has some bitter recriminations against the GOP. The House Republican takeover in the 2010 election, to which the business lobby lent its overwhelming support, went off the rails almost immediately. In their mania for confrontation, Republicans kept shooting at President Obama and hitting the economy where their business allies live. They have repeatedly ratted markets by threatening default, and then, as the price of avoiding full calamity, received budget sequestration cuts that have cost around a million jobs. The costly government shutdown likewise impaired the federal government’s basic functioning.
The most frequent talking point used by businesses to denounce Obama’s agenda — that it was introducing “uncertainty” — turned out to be a demonstrably false description of Obama’s agenda but a plausibly true description of the House Republican one. The erratic pattern of angry backbench rebellion, failed votes, and John Boehner giving up in tears has turned even the normal, status quo gridlock business thought that it would get into an unattainable aspiration.
Yet several things stand between the Democrats and the dream of prying business, and its hundreds of billions of dollars in contributions. One is the inertia of established loyalties. During their 12-year reign from 1995 through 2007, House Republicans carried out what they called the “K Street Project” to cleanse the ranks of the business lobby of former Democrats and fill the slots with GOP loyalists. The mostly Republican loyalists who direct K Street’s political orientation are not eager to sever ties with the Party that nurtured them.
By Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
16 July 14
he business lobby’s very public exasperation with House Republicans has given Democrats in Congress an idea: They can lure the business lobby to switch sides. The basic underlying calculation makes a certain degree of sense. The most recent controversies in Congress have all entailed Republicans defying corporate America’s preferences — by killing immigration reform, threatening the Export-Import Bank, and blocking any long-term solution to highway funding. “It is a trifecta reminder of how the tea party has taken over the Republican Congress,” says Democrat Steve Israel, who, reports The Wall Street Journal, has “stepped up his courtship of business donors.” Likewise, Senator Charles Schumer pleads, “From the Export-Import bank to tax extenders to immigration reform, Democrats and business are on the same side on a range of issues. The Tea Party has dragged the Republican Party so far to the right that business is now closer to mainstream Democrats than Republicans.” But the Democratic courtship of the business lobby has not worked, and it isn’t going to.
It is certainly true that the business lobby has some bitter recriminations against the GOP. The House Republican takeover in the 2010 election, to which the business lobby lent its overwhelming support, went off the rails almost immediately. In their mania for confrontation, Republicans kept shooting at President Obama and hitting the economy where their business allies live. They have repeatedly ratted markets by threatening default, and then, as the price of avoiding full calamity, received budget sequestration cuts that have cost around a million jobs. The costly government shutdown likewise impaired the federal government’s basic functioning.
The most frequent talking point used by businesses to denounce Obama’s agenda — that it was introducing “uncertainty” — turned out to be a demonstrably false description of Obama’s agenda but a plausibly true description of the House Republican one. The erratic pattern of angry backbench rebellion, failed votes, and John Boehner giving up in tears has turned even the normal, status quo gridlock business thought that it would get into an unattainable aspiration.
Yet several things stand between the Democrats and the dream of prying business, and its hundreds of billions of dollars in contributions. One is the inertia of established loyalties. During their 12-year reign from 1995 through 2007, House Republicans carried out what they called the “K Street Project” to cleanse the ranks of the business lobby of former Democrats and fill the slots with GOP loyalists. The mostly Republican loyalists who direct K Street’s political orientation are not eager to sever ties with the Party that nurtured them.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/24804-focus-why-democrats-cant-be-the-party-of-business
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
...in each instance.
What we need is a party to represent the people the Democrats (now currently "the Republicans"
used to be the party of.
A Labor Party? Un, or under, employed Americans probably wouldn't understand the party is for them.
...so do I!
But y'all knew I'd say that didn't you? 
At least among a lot of workers I know.