Obama's spinmeisters paint him as someone who will consider perspectives other than his own. But especially with politicians, we must judge not by what they say, but by what they do.
To wit, here is the complete list of Obama's economic advisors. Not one is right-of-center
Jason Furman (director of economic policy)
Austan Goolsbee (senior economic policy advisor), University of Chicago tax policy expert
Karen Kornbluh (policy director)
David Cutler, Harvard health policy expert
Jeff Liebman, Harvard welfare expert
Michael Froman, Citigroup executive
Daniel Tarullo, Georgetown law professor
David Romer, Berkeley macroeconomist
Christina Romer, Berkeley economic historian
Richard Thaler, University of Chicago behavioral finance expert
Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary
Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary
Alan Blinder, former Vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve
Jared Bernstein, Economic Policy Institute labor economist
James Galbraith, University of Texas macroeconomist
Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1979-1987 (A Carter appointee and Democrat, although also served for Reagan)
Laura Tyson, Berkeley international economist, Bill Clinton economic adviser
Robert Reich, Berkeley public policy professor, former Secretary of Labor
Peter Henry, Stanford international economist
Gene Sperling, former White House economic adviser
Celebration of diversity should mainly be about diversity of ideas, not of melanin. Why has Obama stopped celebrating dare an idea veer right of center?
As I've tried to make clear in my recent posts, for example, The Post-Election Obama, it is fair to say that a vote for Obama is a vote for a liberal ideologue and likely a hard-leftist one.
You left off Warren Buffett. Trust me, he is a moderate.
ReplyDeleteBuffett is not among his official economic advisors, and besides, his politics while moderate, are left-of-center. The point of this post was to demonstrate the inaccuracy of his campaign's spinning him as someone who will consider the full range of solutions to problems.
ReplyDeleteMy earlier posts, for example, The Post-Election Obama, provide evidence that while he's trying to appear moderate, he's likely to be
America's first hard-leftist president.
Was Reagan a right wing president or a centrist president?
ReplyDeleteI think that understanding what you perceive as centrist politics would be valuable.
I am not an expert on Reaganism, and I'm wondering whether this is a trap question, so I will demur.
ReplyDeleteSure he'll listen to all sides -
ReplyDeletehe will listen to keynesians, neo-keynesians, stalinists, trotskyists, and maoists.
How much more inclusive do you want?
Buffett is no fan of unions as you will see by his negotiation tactics when dealing with unions at the Buffalo News. (Buffett bought the News in 1977.) He also backed Republican Tom Osborne in his unsuccessful run for governor of Nebraska in 2004. Osborne is the former University football coach and definitely not a liberal. I suppose this is all subjective. However, those of us from Nebraska view him as a moderate and no friend of the "working man" when it comes to his business tactics.
ReplyDeleteI think your cherrypicking Marty. Personally, I think your common tendency is to despise the popular opinion that you're surrounded with as if it were going to somehow consume you (in this case, Left thinking, being in the Bay Area). Your rebuke that Buffett doesn't count because he's not "official" is weak. You can also find many notable people on the Right that support Obama for a variety of reasons.
ReplyDeleteJohn McCain also wants to redistribute wealth and clearly falls into the "socialist" category by saying he would buy back mortgages with taxpayer dollars from people who defaulted on them. This is offensive to me as a taxpayer since I purchased a smaller house so I would not become over extended on my credit. In reality many people want the government to help them in times of crisis and if that is the case they need to realize that means paying taxes.
ReplyDeletePer an interview with McCain: "We have a plan of action to get America's economy going again, Maria, and it has to do with a wide range of prescriptions. But one of them is to keep people in their homes. Look, it was the housing crisis that started this, OK? Fannie and Freddie, this -- was the catalyst that blew this whole thing up. And frankly, the administration is not doing what I think they should do, and that's go in and buy out these bad mortgages, give people mortgages they can afford, stabilize home values and start them back up again. They did that during the depression, it was called the Home Owners' Loan Corporation.""