Corporate Friendlier

[The U.S. Chamber of Commerce] , which is largely funded and run by a handful of America's biggest corporations, has become the most powerful lobbying force in Washington – and one of the richest front groups funneling secret corporate cash into our elections. Indeed, it poured tens of millions of those dollars into campaign ads this fall to demonize the President and turn the U.S. house over to anti-Obama Republicans.

Yet, the day after the election, the chamber found itself being wooed by the White House. The President even dispatched his treasury secretary to the chamber's opulent headquarters to eat crow and promise that henceforth, Obama and Team would be more corporate friendly.

Good grief! Friendlier than Obama's Wall Street reform that coddled the big banksters, or his health care reform that further entrenches profiteering insurance giants inside the system? Or the tax bill cave-in that needlessly awards billions of dollars in special breaks for corporations and rich CEOs?

Yes. So friendly that Obama is now holding an ongoing series of closed-door policy meetings with assorted CEOs. So friendly that he's already delayed regulations to strengthen anti-pollution rules. So friendly that his deficit-reduction panel proposes cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 26 percent. So friendly that he's planning to put a high-powered CEO right inside the White House with him, as demanded by the whining corporate powers who say they're not getting enough love from the President.

  Jim Hightower

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.