The U.S. Chamber of Commerce purports to be a Republican-leaning organization, but it actually ranked Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid better than Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) in its new scorecard for 2014 votes.
Last year, the Chamber gave Sessions a 57 percent ranking. He voted four times with the big business group, three times against and once didn’t have a recorded vote. Reid, on the other hand, voted with the Chamber five times and against it three times, earning a 63 percent rating.
“Some may be surprised by the scores, but when you look at the bills the Chamber prioritized you can understand why a solid conservative like Jeff Sessions would perform poorly,” Heritage Action spokesman Dan Holler, whose organization does its own scorecards, tells Breitbart News. He says the Chamber’s scorecard “is littered with special interest programs and big government spending.”
Sessions has gone head-to-head with both Reid and the Chamber of Commerce on numerous occasions, especially on immigration policy. They both preach that increasing the number of workers allowed into America through the immigration system is good for the economy, while Sessions prefers to speak up for struggling American citizens.
“There was one group of people not referenced when Majority Leader Reid and Sen. Schumer talked earlier this morning,” Sessions said on the Senate floor last year, while arguing against Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) support for open-borders immigration policies. “You know who it was? Completely omitted was the American worker. That’s who’s not being discussed in this debate.”
“You bring in 30 million people in the next 10 years—as this bill [the Gang of Eight bill] would do—tripling the number that would normally be given legal status in America and it will bring down down the per-person wealth and it will bring down wages,” Sessions added.
Surely the Chamber of Commerce understands the free market, do they not? Surely Senator Reid understands that, does he not? We were on a conference call yesterday worrying about the American steel industry. A large amount of steel was being dumped into America. What is the impact of that? What is the concern?
More steel, lower price for steel. Bring in more cotton, lower price for cotton. Bring in more labor, you have lower wages for American workers. That’s what CBO [Congressional Budget Office] told us. There’s no dispute about that. Yet we have Senators repeatedly go onto this floor and say this is going to increase wages. Give me a break. You can’t just say something and think it’s going to make it reality. It’s just the opposite of reality.
In another famous speech that led the Drudge Report last year, Sessions hammered what he calls “The Masters of The Universe”—a group that includes Democrats such as Reid and their friends from special interest organizations including the Chamber of Commerce.
“The entire Senate Democratic conference has surrendered the jobs, wages and livelihoods of their constituents to a group of special interests meeting in secret at the White House,” Sessions said.
What Congress has refused to pass and the American people have rejected time and again, they are plotting at the White House maybe even more so today to do it anyway no matter what the people think—no matter what Congress, the people’s house, votes on. Politico reports that White House officials have conducted more than 20 meetings—20 meetings in the White House—I doubt they’ve had 20 meetings on ISIS.
Twenty meetings in the White House with legal experts, immigration advocates, business leaders, to gather ideas on what should be included in the order…. So who are these so-called experts, advocates and business leaders? They’re not the law enforcement officers, they’re not our ICE officers, they’re not our border patrol officers, they’re not the American working man and woman. They’re not unemployed Americans. They weren’t in the room, you can be sure of that. Their opinions weren’t sought.
Michelle Malkin, the conservative columnist and author, recently wrote for National Review that the Chamber of Commerce is at war with Americans.
“Giant corporations make common cause with leftist special interests to win government favors,” Malkin wrote.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a politically entrenched synod of special interests. These fat cats do not represent the best interests of American entrepreneurs, American workers, American parents and students, or Americans of any race, class, or age who believe in low taxes and limited government. The chamber’s business is the big business of the Beltway, not the business of mainstream America.
If you are a business owner who believes your country should strictly and consistently enforce its borders and deport illegal immigrants who violate the terms of their visas, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t represent you. If you are a worker who believes that the feds should punish illegal aliens who use fake documents to obtain jobs instead of rewarding them with “legal status,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t champion you.
The issue is becoming an even bigger one in the political debate, heading into the 2016 GOP presidential primaries, as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker—and likely 2016 presidential candidate—has emerged as the populist champion of American working men and women due to his recent comments, which follow Sessions’ ideas on immigration.
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