June 12, 2008

NYT on Jason Furman (Obama econ adviser !!)

p.s. - HiLIARy was Rubin's "plaything" !!

YUCK!

Hey, Obama's not real CHANGE ..

Union Critical of Obama’s Top Economics Aide


Published: June 12, 2008

Acting quickly after securing his party’s presidential nomination, Barack Obama picked a well-known representative of Bill Clinton’s economic policies as his economic policy director and signaled this week that the major players from the Clinton economics team were now in his camp — starting with Robert E. Rubin.


Patrick Andrade for The New York Times

Jason Furman is Barack Obama’s economic policy director.

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Robert E. Rubin, right, with President Clinton in 1999 as the president greeted Lawrence H. Summers, the Harvard economist who succeeded Mr. Rubin as Treasury secretary.

Senator Obama, Democrat of Illinois, hired Jason Furman, a Harvard-trained economist closely associated with Mr. Rubin, a Wall Street insider who served as President Clinton’s Treasury secretary. Labor union leaders criticized the move, and said that “Rubinomics” focused too much on corporate America and not enough on workers.

“For years we’ve expressed strong concerns about corporate influence on the Democratic Party,” John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said Wednesday in a statement implicitly critical of the symbolism of the appointment, no matter Mr. Furman’s economic skills.

The Obama camp has cast Mr. Furman, 37, as an experienced operator in Democratic election campaigns, whose task is to tap the expertise of economists representing a broad spectrum of views. “My own views, such as they are, are irrelevant,” Mr. Furman said.

The Democratic Party often struggles to balance the conflicting demands of corporations and labor, and Mr. Furman’s appointment rang some alarm bells that Mr. Obama might be tilting toward the corporate side — a tilt that Mr. Rubin says does not exist. He argued in an interview on Wednesday that his views were essentially in line with Mr. Obama’s already stated policies.

“I totally support Obama,” Mr. Rubin said, acknowledging his long allegiance to Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I was not going to leave Hillary until she pulled out,” he said, adding: “I think Barack Obama is very well equipped to provide the presidential leadership that the country very badly needs in a rapidly changing world.”

More at the link ..


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