GOP freshmen didn't take kindly to Tom Donohue's remarks concerning the debt ceiling. Chamber 'joke' falls flat on GOP frosh

Was it a joke, or a thinly veiled threat?

That’s the question that has Capitol Hill freshmen and their staffers scratching their heads, after Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue told an Atlanta audience this week that the Chamber would “get rid of” freshmen who refused to vote for raising the debt ceiling.


A spokesman for the Chamber said the comments were lighthearted, and came in the context of “pleasant and humorous banter going back and forth” between Donohue and his audience at an Atlanta Rotary Club dinner Monday night.

But in the midst of high stakes negotiations over whether to raise the debt limit, the remarks rubbed some members the wrong way.

“This is typical Washington, D.C., insider politics. The idea that head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would rather pick fight with the 87 freshmen than with Democrats, that’s pretty disappointing. But that’s what’s different about the freshman class. We don’t listen to folks inside the beltway, we listen to constituents across the country,” said Kansas GOP freshman Tim Huelskamp, who slammed the group for supporting the economic stimulus program.

Huelskamp, like several of his colleagues, won a heated primary campaign with several contenders last fall, and says the powerful Chamber wasn’t a presence in his campaign. So he has little problem going after the traditional party ally for making jokes about the issue that brought so many freshmen to Congress this year.

“That’s the problem with Washington, folks are tied to the status quo inside and outside Capitol, all across Beltway, with little connection to real world. We’re worried about job creation,” Huelskamp said.

Freshman Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) said he was “extremely disappointed, but no longer surprised by the U.S. Chamber’s failure to understand the challenges facing our small businesses. As far as I am concerned, their leadership forfeited its position as a voice for small business when it became comfortably entrenched in Washington’s status quo.”

“The U.S. Chamber’s national leadership would benefit from listening to their local chapters and member businesses about the brokenness of Washington. Regardless of inside-the-beltway threats, I am more committed than ever to doing exactly what our small business owners and hardworking families have sent me here to do,” Southerland said.

Donohue’s comments came during a question and answer session when he said the Chamber had a message for the freshmen who voted against raising the debt ceiling: “We’ll get rid of you.”

Dave Natonski, a spokesman for the organization, said that the comment was meant as a joke—and pointed back to a letter the group sent to lawmakers last month imploring Congress to “approve legislation to raise the debt ceiling,” while making “more judicious spending decisions.” But he declined to comment when asked whether the Chamber had any plans to target members who vote against a debt ceiling hike in 2012.

Mo Brooks, a freshman from Alabama, said that Donohue’s remarks were indicative of the anxiety facing business interests over the vote.

“There are a lot of people in Washington who are facing a lot of stress concerning the short term debt ceiling threat versus the long term federal government insolvency and bankruptcy threat. I see the Chamber’s comments as another reflection of the anxiety associated with these twin problems. You’ve got to walk a real fine line in order to properly handle both, there’s not a lot of wiggle room. If you don’t handle both properly, then you’re looking at economic calamity.”