"Change" Meets Front Groups for the Status Quo [1]
Submitted by Diane Farsetta [2] on
Following President Barack Obama [3]'s first address to Congress [4], which highlighted policy goals "ranging from expanding health-care coverage to cutting farm subsidies to cutting wasteful defense projects," corporate front groups [5] are fighting back. The former head of the largest for-profit hospital chain, HCA [6], announced "a $20 million campaign to pressure Democrats to enact health-care legislation based on free-market principles," under the name "Conservatives for Patients Rights [7]." Joe Lucas of the coal and utility industry front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity [8] said his organization "will spend as much as $40 million to make sure Congress approved a global-warming [9] plan" that includes funding for developing "carbon capture and storage [10]" technology at coal-fired electric plants. The Aerospace Industries Association [11] of America has already spent $2 million on ads arguing that military spending "shouldn't be slashed to offset shortfalls in other areas." Boeing [12] recently added a new top lobbyist, David Morrison from the Podesta Group [13] firm, and Lockheed [14] is still trying to associate its F-22 Raptor fighter jet with stimulus efforts, via its PreserveRaptorJobs.com astroturf website [15].