U.S. Chamber of Commerce violates its own mission

In funding an avalanche of TV ads castigating Connecticut Congressman Chris Murphy (D-5) and 10 other targeted representatives nationwide who favor health reform including a public option, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually violates its own terms of reference. This is so at three distinct levels:

First, the official declared charter purpose of the national chamber, since its founding in 1912, is to promote objectively American business interests and to represent the local interests of its constituencies, but not to engage in political campaigns for or against a particular candidate. The chamber’s tax-exempt, not-for-profit legal status requires this. In targeting Chris Murphy, the chamber is violating its own statute, the U.S. income tax laws and the campaign finance laws of our nation.

Second, the chamber is supposed to inform its constituencies and the public of the true facts and issues of interest to American commercial business. To claim, as the chamber does, that health reform will raise costs to small businesses is doubly false, cynical even, since the chamber’s fear, of course, is exactly the reverse: that a government-run public option that citizens are free to choose will seriously underprice and out-compete the private health insurance industry — which it will!

Third, many local chambers of commerce, and in some states the distinct majority, actually favor health reform with the public option because they realize it will lower costs and provide tax relief, especially for small businesses. In opposing health reform, while knowing the position taken by many local chapters, the U.S. chamber violates its duty to represent its own constituency, the local chapters across the country.

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As the former president of the West Hartford Chamber of Commerce, Kevin Galvin, himself a small business owner and current chairman of Small Business for Health Care Reform, said recently, “The House bill for health reform will help most small businesses in Connecticut, and make them more competitive in national and international markets.� The statement is correct, and the national chamber better take note of it.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made itself not only a purveyor of disinformation, but also a violator of its own legal personality, its privileged tax status and its original trusted purpose. It’s time for a little law enforcement, some corrective measures and a bit of sanitary cleanup at the top.

Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and legal counsel of the World Health Organization.

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