Wednesday, November 18, 2009

From the Department of Unbiased Research

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama's health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation's economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.

The e-mail, written by the Chamber's senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a "respected economist" to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.

Step two, according to the e-mail, appears to assume the outcome of the economic review: "The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document".

Shear, Michael D. 2009. "Health Bill Foes Solicit Funds for Economic Study." Washington Post (16 November).

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

These people have no shame or sense. Everyone knows you endow a chair for stuff like that.

Sandwichman said...

Wow. The news here is that the Washington Post published an expose of the email. This stuff goes on all the time without so much as a peep from the "fifth estate". Maybe the Chamber of Commerce will now organize an advertising boycott of the Post?

Suffern AC said...

They wanted to hire a Big 4 accounting firm, but after after AHIP's PwC report didn't have the desired result, decided to turn to academia...so what does that say about academia?

Shag from Brookline said...

"Respected economist" = oxymoron?

Barkley Rosser said...

The US Chamber of Commerce has always been in favor of mostly laissez faire policies, but it also tended to have a very pragmatic orientation that made it somewhat moderate and reasonable, at least on some issues occasionally. However, it seems that within the last few years it has been taken over by ideological hacksaws who are really on a bender of teabagging lunacy. This ad is just one of the more obvious manifestations of this blatant nonsense.

Ken Houghton said...

Stop picking on Prescott. He needs the money!

Jack said...

No. = euphemism for "whore". Walker
No, I wouldn't agree with that analogy as it puts practitioners of an age old profession in a rather poor light.

Otherwise, CofC is already spreading its vile. There is currently an ad sponsored by the CofC running regularly describing how the health care reform bills in the Congress will put peole out of work. Interestingly it appears during MSNBC's Olberman program. That's targeting a falacious claim.

TheTrucker said...

The health care reform bill that emerges from the Senate may, indeed, hurt everyone other than the medical providers and the insurance companies. And if that is so then it would harm jobs and the economy. The House version of the bill taxes economic rent in order to fund the care of the poor. That removes the burden from the middle class that is now shouldering it via increased insurance premiums from cost shifting, As such, the House version is an economic stimulus. The bought and paid for Senate is not in business to do anything other than protect the rich and the status quo.

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