April 28, 2010 3:24PM # Ron Paul, the Chamber of Commerce, and Economic Freedom By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE Tim Carney has a [blog post at the Examiner](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/once-again-ron-paul-gets-the-lowest-gop-score-from-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-92225644.html) that’s worth quoting in full: > The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued its [2009 congressional scorecard](http://www.uschamber.com/issues/legislators/09htv_house.htm), and once again, Rep. Ron Paul, R‑Tex. — certainly one of the two most free-market politicians in Washington — gets the lowest score of any Republican. > > > Paul was one of a handful of GOP lawmakers not to win the Chamber’s “[Spirit of Enterprise Award](http://www.uschamber.com/issues/legislators/soe).” He scored only a 67%, bucking the Chamber on five votes, including: > > - Paul opposed the “Solar Technology Roadmap Act,” which boosted subsidies for unprofitable solar energy technology. > - Paul opposed the “Travel Promotion Act,” which subsidizes the tourism industry with a new fee on international visitors. > - Paul opposed the largest spending bill in history, Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill. > > (Rep John Duncan, R‑Tenn., tied Ron Paul with 67%. John McHugh, R‑N.Y., scored a 40%, but he missed most of the year because he went off to the Obama administration.) > > > [I wrote about this ](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/New-Chamber-index-shows-conservatives-arent-corporate-pawns-42379362.html)phenomenon last year, when the divergence was even greater between the Chamber’s agenda and the free-market agenda: > > > Similarly, Texas libertarian GOPer Rep. Ron Paul—the most steadfast congressional opponent of regulation, taxation, and any sort of government intervention in business—scored lower than 90% of Democrats last year on the Chamber’s scorecard. > > Sen. Jim DeMint, R‑S.C., had the most conservative voting record in 2008 according to the American Conservative Union (ACU), and was a “taxpayer hero” according to the National Taxpayer’s Union (NTU), but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says his 2008 record was less pro-business than Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. > This year’s picture was less glaring, but it’s still more evidence that “pro-business” is not the same as “pro-freedom.” The U.S. Chamber is the former. Ron Paul, and the libertarian position, is the latter. I suspect that on issues such as free trade agreements and immigration reform, I might be closer to the Chamber’s position than to Ron Paul’s. But to suggest that Paul is wrong to vote against business subsidies — or that DeMint was wrong to vote against Bush’s 2008 stimulus package and the $700 billion TARP bailout — certainly does illustrate how much difference there can be between “pro-business” and “pro-market.” Instead of “Spirit of Enterprise,” the Chamber should call these the “Spirit of Subsidy Awards.” ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).