World News Korner

The internal split within the Republican party widens as the powerful pro-business Chamber of Commerce offers to help politicians battle against Tea Party challengers if they will vote to raise the debt ceiling.

Courtesy of TPM:

The letter circulated by the Chamber of Commerce urges lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling "in a timely manner and remove any threat to the full faith and credit of the United States government." It also acknowledges Republican fears over the unsustainable growth of major benefit programs such Medicare and Social Security and the need for a more business-friendly tax system.

But in a rejection of the tactics of House Speaker John Boehner, the letter urges Congress to pass first a short-term spending bill, then raise the debt ceiling, "and then return to work on these other vital issues."

That advice is being ignored by the GOP-led House.

"There is an element of the more independent, tea party coalition Republicans that, frankly, don't listen to very many people," said John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan and now president of the Business Roundtable, one of the groups that signed the chamber letter. "They are on a mission, often defined on the basis of their view of the world, and they aren't paying very much attention to what this means beyond maybe their own districts."

Concerned, the Chamber of Commerce is preparing to participate in political primaries, protecting friendly lawmakers from conservative challengers. "Clearly we're getting to a point where we need a Congress that's going to be productive, proactive and create a stable environment for economic growth and job creation," said Scott Reed, a Republican political consultant who is advising the chamber on its strategy.

Well this is certainly going to get a certain Arizona based political pundit's panties in a twist.

It is really only the threat of uber conservative primary challengers that is keeping a number of these Republicans in line due to the fact that they are too afraid to cross Ted Cruz and his Teabagger minions. If the Chamber of Commerce has the funds on hand to actually accomplish this tactic of funding primaries around the country that will surely inspire the Koch brothers and Heritage Action to up the ante, and we could see local elections spending multiple millions of dollars for seats in relatively small districts that were once conservative strongholds.

Which by the way might leave coffers somewhat depleted when it came time for the general election against a democratic challenger.

Gonna need some more popcorn I see.

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