Conservatives question US Chamber's plan to spend millions to defeat...Posted: 2014-01-14 (1-13-14 Arizona Freedom Alliance) Tea Party Style Candidates in 2014 The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it will back “pro-business” candidates against Tea Party-styled opponents in this year’s elections, largely in response to conservative lawmakers fueling last year's partial government shutdown fight. “In 2014, the chamber will work to protect and expand a pro-business majority in the House and advance our position and our influence in the Senate,” Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue said Wednesday. “We will support candidates who want to work within the legislative process.” Donohue, in his annual State of American Business speech, didn’t single out the Tea Party specifically but said afterward the chamber’s frustrations are with the movement’s extreme faction and politicians who have linked themselves to the Tea Party. “It’s people who don’t want to play,” Donohue told Fox Business, referring to last year’s budget stalemate that partially closed the federal government for 16 days and the ensuring debt-ceiling negotiations that almost resulted in the same outcome. “The Tea Party has lots of good ideas,” Donohue said. “But those people are not helping us.” In his speech, he said the victory in December of a pro-business candidate over a self-described Tea Party candidate in a GOP congressional primary race in Alabama is a preview of the “aggressive efforts the chamber has planned for the midterm elections.” The chamber -- the county’s most powerful and deep-pocketed pro-business lobby -- signaled last month its stake in the elections by telling The Wall Street Journal it would spend $50 million in this year’s GOP primaries to back establishment Republicans over Tea Party challengers. Dan Holler, spokesman for Heritage Action for American, says conservatives are also interested in economic growth and job creation and suggested the chamber’s efforts might be more about Big Business protecting its influence in Washington and beyond. “If ‘pro-business’ candidates are interested in removing government impediments to growth and job creation, they'll find support amongst conservatives,” Holler told FoxNews.com on Saturday. “But few Americans are clamoring for well-connected special interest groups to use their political connections to secure government-sponsored privileges.” His comments were similar to those of Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, which often backs Tea Party candidates. “It looks to me like the chamber is more interested in protecting incumbents and the special deals of some of their members, and that’s where we’re going to disagree in primaries,” Kibbe told Bloomberg News. Read more on Fox News Editor: If you are a small business owner, AFA has found that NFIB [National Federation of Independent Business] is a conservative pro-business organization. They have over 600,000 members country wide. They provide many benefits and there is an office right here in Arizona.
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