Letter: Chamber has drifted from core values

Letter: Chamber has drifted from core values

Randy Covington
St Johns, FL

Dear Editor:

I have read all the stories on the commitment of the national Chamber to spend $50million dollars to defeat conservative candidates in the upcoming elections.

I am a longtime conservative activist in Republican circles in St Johns County and must express my dismay that the Chamber of Commerce has drifted so far off its core values.

The people you seek to defeat want to preserve the freedoms and values that allow entrepreneurs to prosper and flourish. The people you seek to elect will destroy your members if left unchecked to spend recklessly and pass business-crushing regulation.

Once they kill new and small businesses, the regulators will turn their sights on the larger members of the Chamber; and, there is nothing, no amount of lobbying or political contributions, that will insulate you from the destructive force of their power.

The largest of your members has hijacked your organization. They seek the continuation of policies designed to enrich themselves and limit competition from small businesses. This is evident in your support of the Internet sales tax and the desire to flood America with illegal immigrants — at a time when over 40 million Americans are out or work.

For an organization whose members are composed of people who should understand the importance of conservative values, it seems as if a bunch of fools and children are making the decisions. My fellow activists have taken note. We will be addressing these issues locally with your smaller, more conservative membership.