IT'S THE ECONOMY! AN EXAMINATION OF BARACK OBAMA'S CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISERS

[Orwellian_Ghost]

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us who they are.

MAX FRASER: Well, there are these three young economists: David Cutler, Jeffrey Liebman and Austan Goolsbee. Cutler and Liebman are Harvard economists who hail from the Clinton administration. Goolsbee, who does the lion’s share of the work on this issue, comes from the University of Chicago. They’re all centrist market economists, I mean, what you would call them Clintonian in their politics, and that’s really where they’re coming from. They are oriented towards, you know, market-based solutions to social welfare issues. Cutler writes about incentivizing the healthcare industry as a way to improving care. Liebman has endorsed the partial privatization of Social Security. And Goolsbee also is one of the kind of market faithful.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yeah, I’d like to ask you about Liebman in particular, because I think that, from what I understand, he is proposing a—has proposed for a 20 percent increase in the Social Security payroll tax to, in essence, create private accounts for all Americans. It would be like the equivalent of dues check-off for Wall Street.

MAX FRASER: Yeah.

JUAN GONZALEZ: It would be an enormous windfall for the Wall Street firms to be able to get that kind of a operation.

MAX FRASER: Right.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/8/examining_clinton_obamas_stances_on_the




Austan Goolsbee
Senior Economist, DLC/PPI



Austan Goolsbee is Senior Economist to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). In addition to his responsibilities with the DLC/PPI, Dr. Goolsbee is the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and is recognized as one of the top young stars in the field of economics. He has contributed to numerous academic, financial, and governmental institutions, including the Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is currently a columnist for The New York Times, writing its "Economic Scene" column, and was the Lead Editor for the Journal of Law and Economics from 2001 to 2004. In 1991, Goolsbee served on former Senator David Boren's (D-Okla.) Economics Staff.

Goolsbee has received numerous accolades in his illustrious career. The Financial Times' named him one of the six Gurus of the Future/Best Under 40 in 2005, and the World Economic Forum in Switzerland chose him one as one of the 2005 Young Global Leaders.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=254329&kaid=86&subid=191

New Democrat Movement

GROUP

The right wing current of the Democratic party, characterized by its neoliberal economic policies, support of Israel, desire to increase defense spending, and links to heavy donors and fundraisers.

Believes that "left-wing" positions are not politically viable. Describes itself as "moderate and pro-growth". Probably responsible for erosion of the Democratic Party's historical labor and minority base due to support of treaties like NAFTA, lack of support for affirmative action and poverty programs, and their siphoning away of campaign funds from minority groups.

At the national level, the movement was founded by the Democratic Leadership Council (501c4 educational non-profit, founded 1984) and includes the House New Democrat Coalition (founded 1997), the Senate New Democrat Coalition (founded 2000), the New Democrat Network PAC (founded 1996), the misnamed Progressive Policy Institute (501c4 think tank, "Bill Clinton's idea mill", founded 1989), and the umbrella funding group The Third Way Foundation (501c3 non-profit, founded 1996).

Since coming to power within the Democratic Party with Bill Clinton's presidency, the New Democrats/DLC have worked towards "essentially the same purpose as the Christian Coalition... to pull a broad political party dramatically to the right" according to John Nichols of The Progressive.

DLC operatives actively worked to sabotage Howard Dean's candidacy for the US Presidency in 2004, claiming that the "far-left" Democrat was wrong to attack George W. Bush's tax cuts and national security policies.

Corporate contributors to the DLC and New Democratic Network include Bank One, Citigroup, Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric, Health Insurance Corporation of America, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, Chevron, Prudential Foundation, Amoco Foundation, AT&T, Morgan Stanley, Occidental Petroleum, Raytheon, and many other Fortune 500 companies.

The New Democrat Movement is sometimes referred to as the Dixiecrat movement due to the DLC's origination in the southern states, their desire to get rid of affirmative action, and their membership's overwhelming whiteness.

" shift the primary focus from racism, the traditional enemy without, to self-defeating patterns of behavior " --Chuck Robb, 2nd DLC Chairman, Governor & Senator of the Great State of Virginia, White Man, 1986.

"I'm from the democratic wing of the Democrat Party" --Paul Wellstone, progressive Democrat, criticizing the New Democrat Movement.

http://www.nndb.com/group/269/000093987/

#1 CONTRIBUTOR TO BARACK OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN:

[Orwellian_Ghost]

1. Obama the pragmatist

...

Obama, though, is a plausible pragmatist. His domestic policy advisers are hardly a radical bunch. One economic adviser, Jeffrey Liebman of Harvard, has coauthored an interesting compromise plan on Social Security that would raise taxes a bit, extend the retirement age a bit, and put a bit of money into personal retirement accounts.

Or look at Obama's tax plan. In addition to new middle-class tax credits, it has a technocratic reform proposal that would make filing many tax returns easier by letting the Internal Revenue Service fill them out in advance. And the economist who devised the plan, the University of Chicago's Austan Goolsbee, is no class warrior on taxes or China basher on trade. Don't forget, too, that in his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama himself found a few kind words for President Reagan's 1981 tax cuts, which slashed the top marginal rate to 50 percent from 70 percent, saying that the old sky-high rate did "distort investment decisions." Sounds pretty pragmatic.

...

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/2/8/obama-the-pragmatist.html

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. Good intro here for all candidates economic advisers

...

Robert E. Rubin, the former Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, and still the éminence grise of the party’s Clinton wing, favors the Peru agreement. Mr. Rubin, named chairman of Citigroup last Sunday, has stated that he would like to see Mrs. Clinton become president. He will make some campaign appearances with her before year’s end.

His stature will make him the de facto senior economic adviser in the Clinton campaign. But if Mr. Obama wins in the primaries and gets the nomination, Mr. Rubin would migrate to the Obama camp. His son, James Rubin, already works with Mr. Obama.

Mr. Edwards, as far as Mr. Rubin is concerned, is another matter. He has no links to the Edwards camp, and their differences over budget balancing and trade agreements keep them apart.

Some of the experts consulting with the various Democratic candidates might follow Mr. Rubin’s lead, shunning the Edwards candidacy. Right now, the list of floaters includes Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman, and Alan Krueger, both at Princeton; Lawrence Katz and Elizabeth Warren at Harvard; Jacob S. Hacker, author of “The Great Risk Shift,” at Yale; Thea Lee, a trade expert at the A.F.L.-C.I.O.; and Kenneth E. Thorpe at Emory University.

A few work with only a single candidate: Clyde V. Prestowitz of the Economic Strategy Institute is aligned with Mr. Edwards, for example. Mr. Goolsbee regularly consults with Jeffrey Liebman and David Cutler at Harvard, who back Mr. Obama. Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a former top economist in Bill Clinton’s administration, now back at the University of California, Berkeley, gives advice to the Clinton campaign. David and Christina Romer, also at Berkeley, consult only with Mr. Obama.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/business/08advisers.html?pagewanted=print

[Emit]

3. Liebman has endorsed the partial privatization of Social Security.

Thanks for posting this info. Ties right into some of my concerns.

[JCMach1]

4. Chicago School cretins spewing their Republican tripe... meet the new bosss

same as the old one...

Obama is a progressive... NOT!

[ProgressIn2008]

5. Kick! nt