Nothing like a little red on red action to brighten up your day.
(DC) — Lest Obama begin to feel too popular now that he’s making nice with business, a liberal group is attacking him for addressing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Agenda Project released an ad on Monday charging Obama with hypocrisy for meeting with what Erica Payne, founder of the group, describes as “the biggest lobbyists in the country,” after calling to curb the power of lobbyists in his State of the Union address two weeks ago.
“In that speech he made a commitment to restore people’s confidence in government,” Payne said. “In that speech he also pointed out that lobbyists had too much control over the federal government and indicated that those lobbyists had gone about to get special provisions in the tax code for a small number of companies that as a result paid little or no taxes. And two weeks later he’s meeting with the worst perpetrators of that which he professes to be trying to end.”
“I think it is the height of hypocrisy,” she said.
Payne says she has no problem with Obama’s new push to be “more neighborly” toward business, as he said in his speech to the Chamber, but she disputes that speaking to the Chamber accomplishes that.
“While the Chamber or Commerce has a reputation, and it’s done a good job marketing itself as the voice of American business, it is not the voice of American business,” Payne said. “It is really the voice of about 45 American companies.”