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February 10, 2009 08:39 PM UTC

Debunking The "Business Community" Myth

  • 37 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

In a Denver Post article about union money spent on the 2008 election, we find this oft-repeated myth:

Bennet and others may be under pressure from labor, but they can’t afford to appear anti-business, said Donald Beachler, a political science professor at Ithaca College.

“Business has other candidates to go to. Labor has really nowhere to go but to the Democrats,” he said.

Really? Who is that? Where are these fantastic “business-only” candidates that are defeating Democrats at every step?

Look, we’re not trying to advocate for or against business interests here, but this idea that Democrats have to be careful not to anger the business gods is really getting out of hand. News articles often speak of “the business community” as though it were some sort of organized, focused political force, when this is far from reality.

The truth is that the “business community” needs Democrats a lot more than Democrats need the “business community.” Democrats have proved that they can win elections with or without them.

In Colorado, the “business community” that is often discussed is really just the NFIB, CACI (the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry) and the various local Realtors’ Associations — all of which are little more than Republican organizations in this state. CACI, for example, is as “non-partisan” as many labor unions. This “business community” would only really support a Democrat in a competitive election if they had no other choice. In this regard, Democrats worried about support from the “business community” are just chasing their tails.

For example, Gov. Bill Ritter’s obsession with placating the “business community” in everything he does has really begun to erode his base. But in 2010, this “business community” isn’t going to support him for re-election anyway. They’re going to back the Republican candidate unless that candidate is completely worthless. Business interests only backed Ritter in 2006 when it was clear that Republican Bob Beauprez’s campaign had cratered.

Here’s another example: Remember all the coverage when Ritter vetoed the infamous “Labor Peace Act” in early 2007 despite unanimous approval from Democrats in the legislature? Ritter vetoed the bill so he wouldn’t anger the “business community,” but he’s still getting blamed for it to this day. In the end, Ritter angered both labor unions and the “business community” just by letting the bill get to the point where he felt compelled to veto it. From a purely political standpoint, he would have been better off just signing the bill.

Meanwhile, in 2008 voters in Colorado overwhelmingly rejected ballot measures put forth by the so-called “business community,” including “Right to Work.” Many business groups, such as the South Metro Chamber of Commerce, actually opposed “Right to Work” anyway. And polling in Colorado has shown that the average voter is not opposed to labor unions in general. Voters don’t see labor as the bogeyman that CACI and other groups try to paint it as.

In fact, you could make the case that in this economic environment, it is the “business community” that people are really angry with. It seems like every other week that we read about corporations continuing to hand out huge bonuses or perks even after pleading for bailout money.

Again, our point here isn’t to attack the “business community,” but merely to point out the fallacy that Democrats must always placate this group that isn’t going to support them in an election anyway–and isn’t all that beloved by the average voter. Democrats have won recent elections not because they were supported by business interests, but in spite of the opposition from them. The “business community” spent millions of dollars in the 2008 cycle on TV ads attacking Democrat Mark Udall for supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. Udall ended up beating Republican Bob Schaffer by double digits.

So why, again, do Democrats need to be careful not to anger the “business community?”

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37 thoughts on “Debunking The “Business Community” Myth”

  1. The Denver Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is nothing more than a tax and spend division of the Democratic Party.

    Dems are very good at giving the business lobbyists what they want, lots of corporate welfare at the state and fed levels.

    CACI  represents big businesses in the state, or what’s left of them.

    NFIB traditionally has been a top down organization run by a director who does its lobbying and runs the show with a minimum of input from members who are too busy running their businesses to get involved.

    As you say, the real players are the trade and professional associations. The most effective are the health care providers’ groups, who have been very successful in getting the general assembly and gov, regardless of party, to saddle health insurance buyers with misguided and expensive mandates that insurers cover specific providers. This makes the providers rich and encourages them to support the party in power.

    Remember,  Tim Gill, Jared Polis, Pat Stryker and the Dems’ other sugar daddies and mommies all can trace their luck and good fortunes to private businesses. That they’re dumb enough to support policies and politicians that make it difficult for others to make nice livings in small businesses only shows their lack of intellectual integrity and their selfishness.

    1. You can make a drinking game out of the number of times you accuse someone of “intellectual dishonesty” or some paraphrase thereof. Such parroting is a measure of your own intellect, and it’s not deep.

      1. The Denver Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is nothing more than a tax and spend division of the Democratic Party.

        This group is much more then that, they operate behind the scenes as a dysfunctional virus of traditional business interests.

        As long as they continue to operate as they do, the Democrats will have the upper hand. There is nothing wrong with that if you support the Democrat way. My advice to the Guv, Mayor and other national leaders … keep on chargin’ this pump is primed and ready to enter 2010 divided, unfocused and as corrupt as usual.

      2. There’s a lot of intellectual dishonesty around, and I call it as I see it.

        Hell, three or four of Obama’s cabinet appointees are tax cheats, and his economic team have turned into meek brown noses to the boss instead of strong advisers.

        Sorry about that.

          1. I enjoy letting you know how full of shit you are. It’s just about all I come here for these days. So you keep your BS up and I’ll keep calling you out on it.

            PS Do you like how I replied to my own comment? 🙂

    3. I think it’s very telling that the business community is the state has been saying that we don’t have enough government. A vibrant and well-funded public school system, good state universities, and safe, effective infrastructure are going to go much further in luring businesses from around the country than lowering their tax rates.

      Colorado already has one of the lowest effective tax-rates in the US (48th, just in front of South Dakota and someone else). If that were the only thing that brought businesses, they’d be clamoring to move here. But, since they aren’t, at least not in the droves we’d like to see, it’s obvious there are other things that businesses look for.  

        1. We’re one of four states that gets less revenue at the state level than we do at the local level. It hamstrings services, particularly education.

          Businesses, esp. technology companies, realize that Colorado can’t just keep importing its educated labor force. We’ll have to make it ourselves. And without spending on education, or health care, or social services whatsoever, we’re not going to have as high quality a workforce. It’s that simple.

          EVERY business needs government at some level or another. The range of necessity is different, but you’ll be hard-pressed to name one business in Colorado that doesn’t rely on roads, healthy workers, low crime rates, or better educated workers to do more business.

          And I promise you, I’m very real. I do this for a living. 🙂

          2. Businesses look at the total of state and local taxes when they evaluate Colorado and other states. Capital intensive industries avoid the state (energy excepted, of course) because of business personal property taxes.

            From what I can tell, and I stand to be corrected, the total tax burden in Colorado isn’t much different from what it is in Illinois and other high-tax states.

            See: http://www.taxfoundation.org/t…

            Be sure to go to 2008.

            CA 10.5%

            CO 9.0% Rank 34

            CT 11.1%

            IL, IA 9.3%

            MI, OR, 9.4%

            MD 10.4% rank 4

            NJ 11.8% rank 1

            Rates don’t differ that much. So other factors are more important.

        2. I’m the CEO of a business that gets zero money from government in Colorado. And I desperately want to see strong funding of higher-ed as we live & die based on the quality of students coming out of CU and CSU.

          I would be thrilled to have my taxes go up to cover healthcare so I no longer have to hassle with it. It’s not my area of espertise and yet I get sucked in to the decisions on it.

          I want adequate roads, a quality K-12 schools system, and high speed boradband to everyone.

          And I’m smart enough to realize that my taxes will go up to pay for this. But I will also see the market for our software increase even more – and so I end up with more.

          Any businessperson who can think past next week gets this.

            1. Or is it that in the high-tech industry we pay our employees a reasonable wage and treat them well – and some industries feel threatened that their workers are pushing to also be treated reasonably?

              Also, I was speaking to A.S.’ comment that only contractors want higher taxes.

          2. Smart business owners want to import educated people, keep average kids for CO colleges and send the state’s smart kids to smart kids’ schools. They most likely  will come back.

  2. We don’t tell you about the weekly newsletter, monthly meetings, or secret handshake because we don’t want you to know that we are a single monolithic power.

    To get serious the “business community” runs the gamut politically. There are groups that represent come companies but they represent those companies only. There is no set of core issues we all care about. For example, while I have a personal political interest in unions, as CEO I have no interest because they don’t exist in the high-tech industry.

    And even where there is common interests between business leaders, there can be major differences in what they want. My view is I want the economy fixed because in a growing economy my business can grow. If my taxes go up to cover that, so be it. But someone else in the same position might be interested in how much of their own money they can keep (low taxes) and the economy can go hang for all they care.

    As Pols says – there is not “business community” to suck up to, there are just a boatload of somehwat similiar groups.

    1. It’s a myth that anything anybody in any business wants is representative of “the business community.” CACI and NFIB don’t represent “the business community.” They represent their own narrow particular interests.

  3. Unions soaked Colorado with $25 million in campaign contributions last year, winning victories on two of three ballot measures and backing state candidates to ensure the legislature remained in Democratic control.

    Contributions to state-level races from labor unions dwarfed those from the business community by a ratio of more than 2-to-1, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics. And the $25 million was almost four times the amount spent by unions in Colorado’s previous four elections combined.

    And human/weasel/communist (I mean that with love) Mitch Ackerman responds:

    Mitch Ackerman, head of Service Employees International Union Local 105, said labor “sent a pretty clear message” to the “narrow, well-funded corporate interests” that led last year’s ballot measures and would continue trying to make progress for its members.

    Um…Who is well funded?  Hopefully people realize that the victim card played by Labor is a total joke, whether it’s in regards to political money or getting rid of secret ballot elections where they get their asses kicked.

    1. Shorter Laughing Boy: I cannot believe that workers and labor organizations fought back against ballot measures meant to destroy labor in Colorado!

      Yes, labor spent a lot of money in 2008. That’s because there were 3 major anti-labor and anti-worker Constiutional Amendments on the ballot. Jon Caldera, Jonathan Coors and other right-wing interests picked a fight. Thems politics my friend, you pick a fight and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Ask COGA and Bill Ritter.

      Also, wasn’t part of the strategy from the right to force labor to spend huge resources in 2008? Your whining is pretty transparent LB.  

      1. Just kind of like voting in secret, you know – like in an election.

        No cause I support is important enough for me to need to force it on anyone by sending goons to their house to sign a card.

        1. You’re constantly offering up these scatter-shot talking points-laden posts. It’s sort of amusing watching you fall back to your Chamber of Commerce approved points whenever you’re challenged.

          You should try though to use the talking points applicable to the discussion at hand.

          For example, in this instance you fell back on your “Unions = The Mob” talking points. In actuality the “Democrats are wholly owned by Unions” and “Unions spend members money on political campaigns!” memes are the applicable talking points for this topic.

          It’s paint by numbers but you’re having trouble counting.  

          1. How if something is an opposing point, it’s labeled “talking points” or “kool aid”.

            The primary purpose of the EFCA is to effectively eliminate the unions from having to go to a secret ballot vote to certify.  It is not outside the realm of possibility, considering Labor’s past ties to organized crime and the bullying way they conduct themselves (see:poison pill amendments) that they would send reps to someone’s house to ask for a signature.  That would be intimidating to many people, and it’s bullshit to move away from a secret ballot.

            Yes, I know it doesn’t outlaw the secret ballot, but don’t patronize me and tell me that there would ever be another secret ballot certification election again.

              1. I’m demonstrating what the Unions will do with forced enlargement of their ranks.

                Labor is not underfunded in politics, and it will get a lot worse if EFCA passes.  I know there are people that lurk and post here that actually own businesses that they might be interested in keeping in the black.  EFCA will put some of them out of business.

                1. It’s all related if you look at Union Labor’s role in the political process as a bad thing.

                  You are probably separating the issues because you are viewing the issues from the other side, but I politically want to strangle Labor’s hold on things like education in order to improve the quality of the endeavor.

                  TO someone like you who relies on the political power and fundraising abilities of union membership, EFCA and the ridiculous amount of money Labor spent in the State last year are two arms that aren’t as related as I might see them to be.  The supposedly now-mythical “business community” is going to start to realize the choke hold this will put on doing business in Colorado and fight it, and I expect they will.

                  1. I have never called someone “dense” or “stupid” that doesn’t agree with me.  It seems to be in the genetic leftie code to suppose that you constantly know better for others than they do for themselves.

                    I might have to wrestle one of you bastards.

                    🙂

            3. Most of labors major ties to the Teamsters have been eliminated long ago when it was taken over by the G.Organized crime went corporate more recently than the Teamster conservatorship and re emergence.

              The Chicago outfits control of the Stardust and other casinos wasn’t pro labor.

              The Italians in all the major families have been heavily prosecuted and jailed in the last 15 years.

              Historically, known ties were present in the  midwest and the east, and not nearly as strong in  Colorado.

              Marcopolis (the man that outed Madoff) testified before Congress last week that the Russian and Columbians were known to be doing business heavily with Madoff laundering money. Laundered money has been known to prop up Wall St for at least 15 years.

              I don’t believe the Mexican cartels, the Russians, nor the Tongs have anything to do with labor in Colorado. I could be wrong.

              You could ask the Governor. He was the Denver DA for 10 years.

              I don’t think the secret ballot is the real issue, and personally would support keeping it.

              The issue has been the need for just one vote to unionize rather than two.

              1. I agree with almost everything you just said.

                Even this:

                I don’t think the secret ballot is the real issue, and personally would support keeping it.

                The issue has been the need for just one vote to unionize rather than two.

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