U.S. CHAMBER SUPPORTS PHILIP MORRIS

“The campaign to stop Congress from imposing a tax on cigarettes was among the chamber’s first major successes, writes [Alyssa] Katz, and is among the most illustrative. In 1998, Tom Donohue, the head of the chamber, told a major donor, Philip Morris, that his ‘goal is simple — to build the biggest gorilla in this town — the most aggressive and vigorous business advocate our nation has ever seen.’ Before the vote to apply a $1.10 tax on every package of cigarettes, sponsored by John McCain, the chamber spent $100,000 on television ads showing lobbyists coming out of clown cars to descend on Washington. In one of the ads a waitress asks, ‘Taxing people like me to pay millionaire trial lawyers? What’s next?’”

“The chamber sent letters to every senator and to grassroots organizations, warning that the tax would enrich trial lawyers at the expense of the poor and create a huge black market in cigarettes. Going further, the chamber threatened to include the vote in its influential How They Voted list, claiming that those who voted for it did not stand up for business. The Senate finally blocked the bill.”

Jeff Madrick, “How the Lobbyists Win in Washington,” a review of Alyssa Katz’s, The Influence Machine: The US Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life, April 7, 2016, in The New York Review, April 7, 2016, pp: 50-52.