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Tag: Barack Obama
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Robert Rubin’s disciples dominate Obama economic team
No team of rivals, this.
If anything, Barack Obama’s economic team is stunning for its homogeneity. Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers and Peter Orszag are all proteges of former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, a centrist economist who was one of the key Democratic architects of the financial deregulation undertaken in the Clinton years.
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Liberal economist Robert Kuttner, editor of The American Prospect, expresses bafflement at Obama’s decision to pack his team with disciples of Rubin, an advocate of balanced budgets, free trade and financial deregulation – especially given Rubin’s central role at Citigroup, now on the brink of financial disaster.
“What kind of magic does this man Rubin have?” Kuttner asked in a recent Huffington Post column:
He was one of the key Democratic architects of the extreme financial deregulation that brought the economy to this pass. At Citi, he was one of the grand strategists of the speculation in securitized loans and off-balance-sheet gimmicks that has brought Citi to the edge of bankruptcy. Yet he continues to fall upwards. Surely Barack Obama must have noticed that Rubin is a false prophet. So why is his entire senior economic group a Team of Rubinistas?
. . .In fairness, adults are not merely tools of their patrons. In recent months, Larry Summers has disagreed with Rubin on the scale of the needed stimulus. Tim Geithner is for far more regulation than Rubin. Jason Furman, though suggested by Rubin for his campaign post of economic policy director, actually spent more of his career working for Joseph Stiglitz than for Robert Rubin. Peter Orszag has done a fine job as director of the Congressional Budget Office, and is not averse to large scale public spending.
Kuttner urges Obama to pick at least one senior economic adviser from outside Rubin’s centrist circle who would reflect the more muscular view of the government’s role favored by liberals.
But New York Times columnist David Leonhardt suggests the old, ideological battles of the Clinton years – known as the “Battle of the Bobs, Rubin versus Reich” – are now irrelevant.
Explaining the old divide, Leonhardt wrote: “On one side was Clinton’s labor secretary and longtime friend, who argued that the government should invest in roads, bridges, worker training and the like to stimulate the economy and help the middle class. On the other side was Bob Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs executive turned White House aide, who favored reducing the deficit to soothe the bond market, bring down interest rates and get the economy moving again.”
But today, against the backdrop of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, Leonhardt suggests the “Battle of the Bobs” has given way to a consensus on the need for a vigorous government intervention in the economy.
Certainly, Geithner is on record in support of regulating financial instruments and Obama himself has pledged to ushering in a period of re-regulation.
Both the president-elect and his team have also agreed on a massive stimulus plan that if passed by Congress would pump hundreds of billions into an economic jumpstart – hardly Rubin’s old recipe of balanced budgets, deficit reduction and deregulation.
“Everyone recognizes that we’re looking at deficits of considerable magnitude,” liberal economist Jared Bernstein told the New York Times. “Whether it’s Bob Rubin, Larry Summers or the most conservative economist, that’s a widely shared recognition.”
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This post is tagged with: , Barack Obama, James P. Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Michael Froman, Peter Orszag, Politics, Recent Stories, Timothy Geithner
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College presidents may be wearing too many hatsJanuary 30, 2009 at 9:42am
Should university presidents sit on corporate boards? Sen. Chuck Grassley doesn’t think so.
Waxman’s coup likely to boost Obama energy agenda
He has been called the “scariest guy in town” and the Democrats’ Eliot Ness.
Rep. Henry Waxman, the 69-year-old Californian who wrested control of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee from Congress’ longest-serving chairman yesterday, is expected to usher in far more activist approach to global warming and energy independence than his predecessor, Michigan Rep. John Dingell.
And with his longtime chief of staff Phil Schiliro just tapped by President-elect Barack Obama as his liaison with Congress, Waxman is likely to work closely with the new administration, speeding passage of Obama’s health and energy agenda, which includes spending $150 billion on renewable fuel research and one million new hybrid cars.
“We are at a unique moment in history,” Waxman told reporters after the secret-ballot vote. “Seniority is important, but it should not be a grant of property rights to be chairman for three decades or more.”
Waxman developed a reputation as a tough and tenacious inquisitor as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where he churned out an endless series of reports on issues ranging from Halliburton’s excessive billing on contracts in Iraq to the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education programs.
Though he represents one of the most liberal and affluent districts in Congress – an area that includes Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Santa Monica – there is nothing slick about the man.
He grew up in an apartment over a Watts grocery store owned by his father, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. After a stint in the California assembly, he came to Congress as part of the group of post-Watergate reformers known as the Class of 1974.
“Doing reports, conducting oversight – it’s what he has always done,” Schiliro told the Nation.
Although both Dingell and Waxman support universal health care, they have fought over the best methods of curbing global warming.
Dingell, 82, has worked on some environmental legislation, helping pass the Clean Air Act of 1990 and the raising of fuel-efficiency standards on the auto industry last year. But he has resisted previous efforts to raise fuel-efficiency standards, and environmentalists view him as an impediment.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was officially neutral in the Waxman-Dingell contest, circumvented Dingell last year by creating a temporary global warming committee chaired by Rep. Edward J. Markey of MA., a close ally.
While Dingell’s biggest contributors have been Detroit’s automakers and telecommunications giants – hardly surprising for a Michigan lawmaker and commerce chairman – Waxman’s are health-care players and unions.
The Center for Responsive Politics lists Dingell’s top donors as General Motors, Ford, BellSouth and DaimlerChrysler, AT&T and Comcast, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Waxman’s biggest contributors are the American Association for Justice, a lawyers’ trade group, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Hospital Association, the Service Employees International Union and the American Medical Association, according to the watchdog group.
The leadership change is a blow to the already-reeling auto industry, another confirmation of their diminished power on Capitol Hill. Republicans, meanwhile, expressed concern that the Democratic party is shifting leftward.
“This decision sends a troubling signal from a Majority that has promised to govern from the center,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “They moved away from Chairman Dingell because he is committed to approaching energy and environmental issues in a manner that protects American jobs.”
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New owners take charge of Houston AstrosNovember 23, 2011 at 7:38am
After a long vetting process by Major League Baseball, ownership of the Houston Astros passed Tuesday to businessman Jim Crane and his partners.
Penny Pritzker says no thanks to Commerce post
Penny Pritzker, the billionaire heiress who oversaw Barack Obama’s record-breaking fund-raising efforts, has taken herself out of the mix for U.S. Commerce Secretary.
“Penny Pritzker ultimately has decided she does not want to do the Commerce thing,” the Chicago Tribune’s Swamp quotes a senior Obama official.
Pritzker is already part of the Obama Biden economic transition team. But sources said it would have been exceedingly difficult for her to disentangle from her family’s far-flung business empire to fulfill the president-elect’s ethics requirements for members of his administration.
The 49-year-old Harvard- and Stanford-educated lawyer and businesswoman, whose net worth was estimated at $2.8 billion last year, is one of a trio of Pritzkers who run a sprawling family empire that includes the Hyatt hotel chain.
Pritzker first met the Obamas in the late 1990s when her son and daughter played in a summer basketball league at a Chicago YMCA coached by Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s brother, who introduced them.
Another key link was Obama’s longtime friend Martin Nesbitt, a vice president of the Pritzker Realty group, who approached her about getting involved in Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign, where she also would serve as finance chairman then.
A Pritzker appointment would certainly have not broken the “business as usual” mold that Obama has campaigned against. On the other hand, many commerce secretaries have been major donors of the presidents who appoint them.
Pritzker also would have brought baggage as the former chairwoman of Chicago’s Superior Bank, which failed in 2001 after making large amounts of sub-prime loans. While she stepped down as chairwoman in 1994, she remained on the board of the bank’s holding company.
The Chicago-Sun Times reported in April that it had obtained a letter showing that until Superior’s end, Pritzker made efforts to try to revive the bank with an expanded push into subprime loans. Pritzker’s attorney Kevin Poorman said that the kind of subprime lending that Superior was doing in 2001 was not predatory.
Update: Chicago Sun Times columnist Lynn Sweet posts an email from Pritzker herself saying she is not a candidate for the Commerce post. “I think I can best serve our nation in my current capacity: building businesses, creating jobs and working to strengthen our economy,” Pritzker said.
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The relationship map to the left is interactive.• Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations.• Expand items with + signs by double-clicking or by selecting multiple items in the map and pressing the “e” key.• Move an item in the map by clicking and dragging.• You can also delete items, separate boxes and save maps. Right-click on the map or select Map Tools for these options.• Find out more about an item in the map by right-clicking on the item and choosing Information about…• View map color key.• This interactive map requires Flash player.
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Sibling rivalries in national politicsMay 21, 2010 at 7:30am
Not since 1968 have brothers stood against one another for such a powerful political position.
Candidate Obama is now president-elect
Winning decisively in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Virginia, Barack Obama was elected the 44th president today – the first black American ever chosen for the office.
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“Hello Chicago!” he declared. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”
Republican candidate John McCain conceded the race at 11:15 p.m., graciously pledging to work with Obama “to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.”
Obama’s acceptance speech echoed the theme of inclusion he offered four years ago, at the Democratic convention that nominated John Kerry as its candidate.
“We have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states,” he said. “We are the United States of America.”
He addressed those who did not vote for him: “I will be your president too,” he said.
And he spoke to those beyond America’s borders: “Our stories are singular but our destiny is shared.”
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Obama convenes economic advisers, calls for swift action on economyNovember 7, 2008 at 4:37pm
In his first news conference as president-elect Barack Obama laid out the top priority of his first 100 days: A package of spending that he hopes will stimulate economic growth and aid a struggling middle class.
Rahm Emanuel agrees to be chief of staff
Fresh from his victory Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama has tapped a fellow Chicagoan to be the White House enforcer.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., announced today that he had agreed to be the president-elect’s chief of staff.
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“Obama wants a bad cop, so he can be good cop 90 percent of the time,” an unnamed Obama adviser told Politico.
The fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, Emanuel, 48, was first elected in 2002. He won re-election Tuesday with nearly 74 percent of the vote.
In 2006, he was the driving force behind his party’s successful effort to take back the House in 2006.
As the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he vetted potential challengers to Republican candidates, making sure they had the money or could raise the money to run a real race.
His style, by all reports, did not include playing nice.
“Emanuel is hard-wired to go for the jugular,” Nina Easton wrote in Fortune at the time. “Politics Chicago-style are part of his DNA.”
Given that DNA, it’s not surprising that Emanuel has Democratic, as well as Republican, detractors.
“I love Rahm, but that’s a small group of us,” Democratic operative Paul Begala told Easton. “He’s not a beloved figure like Tip O’Neill or Dick Gephardt. Rahm’s there (at the DCCC) because they want to
win.”When Emanuel joins Obama, he will be returning to a familiar workplace, as he served as a senior adviser in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 1998.
Before that, Emanuel was director of finance in Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign.
In January 1999, Emanuel left politics, joining the investment bank then known as Wasserstein Perella & Co. In four years, he made a reported $18 million before leaving banking to run for Congress.
Given his connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton and his friendship with Barack and Michelle Obama, Emanuel has emerged as a link between two factions in the Democratic Party.
“There are people that know the Obamas better than Rahm does, there are probably people who know the Clintons better than Rahm does,” Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker magazine said this spring in introducing Emanuel in a video interview.
“But I don’t think there’s anyone in American politics that knows both the Clintons and the Obamas better than Rahm does.”
This dual connection left Emanuel, a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention, unwilling to choose between Obama and Hillary Clinton until the primary season was over.
He endorsed Obama in June after Clinton conceded defeat and went on to work on Obama’s behalf.
In May, Emanuel told Lizza that he believed Obama’s first few weeks in office, if he were elected, would focus on the passage of the children’s health bill that President Bush vetoed last year.
“You want to show you can get something done,” Emanuel said.
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Obama convenes economic advisers, calls for swift action on economyNovember 7, 2008 at 4:37pm
In his first news conference as president-elect Barack Obama laid out the top priority of his first 100 days: A package of spending that he hopes will stimulate economic growth and aid a struggling middle class.
Obama’s grandmother dies
Barack Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, who played a central role in his life, died in Hawaii early today.
Dunham, who turned 86 last week, had been suffering from cancer, as well as injuries from a recent fall. Two weeks ago, the Illinois senator made the decision to leave the campaign trail to say goodbye to the woman who had helped raise him and whom he called “Toot” – short for Tutu, Hawaiian for grandmother.
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“She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances.”
Although Dunham was too ill to see her grandson accept the Democratic nomination in Denver this summer, she is said to have followed his progress daily on CNN. He dedicated his acceptance speech to her.
Dunham helped raise Obama after the collapse of her daughter Ann’s marriage to a Kenyan graduate student, and again, during his teen-age years when her daughter remarried and moved to Indonesia.
“She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring,” Obama and Soetoro-Ng said in the statement. “Our debt to her is beyond measure.”
Obama has described Dunham as a devoted grandparent and a trailblazer, who worked on a Boeing aircraft B-29 assembly line during World War II, and later became one of the first female vice presidents at the Bank of Hawaii. He has attributed his toughness and pragmatism to traits she passed onto him.
Campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Obama learned of his grandmother’s death a little after 8 a.m. in Jacksonville, Fla., where he had spent the evening. He said that Dunham died late Sunday evening on Hawaii Standard Time, which was between 4 and 5 a.m. EST.
Here are Obama’s public comments about Dunham at a campaign stop in Raleigh, NC:
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Bernard Madoff charged with multi-billion securities fraudDecember 11, 2008 at 6:33pm
Bernard L. Madoff, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and a former NASDAQ governor, was arrested Thursday morning by FBI agents and charged with a multi-billion-dollar criminal securities fraud.
Rashid Khalidi’s web of connections includes McCain, as well as Obama
Social networks can be tricky things, as John McCain found out this week.
The Republican presidential nominee and his team have lately been hammering Barack Obama for his association with Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate of Palestinian rights.
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The effort to paint Khaladi – and by association, Obama – as a friend of terrorists is clearly aimed at fanning the anxieties of Jewish voters in the swing state of Florida. But in this case, the game of guilt-by-association circles back to McCain himself, who is also part of Khalidi’s extended network.
As first reported by Huffington Post, McCain chairs a nonprofit group called the International Republican Institute which has given almost a half million dollars to a Palestinian research center that Khalidi co-founded.
In 1998, the Institute gave a $448,873 grant for research in the West Bank to the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, according to its tax filing.
If Khalidi is such an unsavory character, why would a group dedicated to advancing “freedom and democracy worldwide by developing political parties, civic institutions, open elections, good governance and the rule of law,” donate money to him and his associates?
The Center for Palestine Research and Studies was founded in 1993 by Khalidi and six others as an independent think tank for Palestinian policy and strategy. Khalidi has also served as a founding trustee.
According to its web site, “The Center does not adopt political positions other than advocating free, democratic exchange and expression. It is fully committed to information exchange and to publishing research according to professional standards. CPRS encourages outstanding scholars in Palestinian political, strategic, and economic issues to actively participate in the current dialogue regarding the formulation of Palestinian priorities and options and to gather a range of perspectives.”
Obama’s relationship to Khalidi, meanwhile, dates to the 1990s when the two men taught at the University of Chicago, lived in the same neighborhood and had children attending the same school. During the 1990s, Khalidi was the director of both the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago.
At the 2003 dinner celebrating Khalidi’s departure from Chicago to go to Columbia, then-state senator Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking, according to an April story by Peter Wallsten at the Los Angeles Times.
His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.”
Editors at the Los Angeles Times have refused to release the videotape citing a promise made to the source who supplied it.
In that same story, Obama is described as a “stalwart” supporter of Israel and its security needs, who endorses a two-state solution in which Jewish and Palestinian nations co-exist – consistent with current U.S. policy.
Khalidi traces his roots to New York, as well as the Middle East. He was born in Manhattan in 1948. His father, a Palestinian Muslim born in Jerusalem, worked for the United Nations, and his mother a Lebanese-American Christian, was an interior decorator.
After graduating from the United Nations International School, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale in 1970 and a doctorate from Oxford University in 1974. Before coming to Chicago, he had taught at universities in Lebanon.
Khalidi denies he was ever a spokesman for the PLO. He was an adviser to the Palestinian delegation during Middle East peace talks from 1991 to 1993, and often talked to reporters about the Palestinian cause, which he said led some to erroneously identify him as a spokesman.
In an article published this spring in the Nation magazine, Khalidi denounced Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and U.S. Middle East policy, but also condemned Palestinians for failing to embrace a nonviolent strategy. He said that the two-state solution favored by the Bush administration (and Obama) is “deeply flawed,” but conceded there were also “flaws in the alternatives.”
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Muckety this! Joe Biden to Jessica SimpsonNovember 6, 2008 at 5:36pm
Many celebrities have come out in support of president-elect Barack Obama, but which singer credits Joe Biden for his existence?
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