Obama’s Nerve: Attacking McCain on Social Security
By SusanUnPC on June 13, 2008 at 6:25 PM in Austan Goolsbee, Barack Obama, Current Affairs, DNC, Democratic Party, Elitism, NAFTA, Obamatopia, Qualifications, Workers
I just heard on Fox News that Obama today is attacking John McCain for advocating the privatization of Social Security. Oh the irony. I keep asking everyone to read RonK Seattle’s investigative reports on the policy positions of Barack Obama’s economic advisers. You may read all of RonK Seattle’s diaries published at Daily Kos or at his new digs, Riverdaughter’s The Confluence. From RonK Seattle’s “The Audiology of Hope: Dogwhistle Economics 102“:
Our first installment began the task of decoding Barack Obama’s curious appeal to our right-of-center friends and relatives. (His point man on domestic policy is also the DLC’s Senior Economist — a deregulatin’, free tradin’, globalizin’, sharp-shootin’ son-of-a-centrist-gun from Waco Texas, Milton Academy, Yale’s Skull and Bones society and the Chicago school.)
The second member of Obama’s policy advisor triad is Harvard’s Jeffrey Liebman. Specialty: “pensions and poverty”, i.e., “entitlements”, i.e., “Social Security“.
Liebman’s reputation: centrist alarmist and moderate privatizer. [CONTINUED below]
He has supported partial privatization of the government-run retirement system, an idea that’s anathema to many Democrats and bears a similarity to a proposal for personal investment accounts that Bush promoted, then dropped in 2005.
“Liebman has been to open to private accounts and most people in town would say he’s a moderate supporter of them,” said Michael Tanner, a Social Security expert at the Cato Institute
Again, this is from RonK Seattle’s “The Audiology of Hope: Dogwhistle Economics 102.” READ all of RonK Seattle’s diaries published at Daily Kos on his inestigative work in exposing the REAL Barack Obama. (It is no wonder that RonK Seattle fled Daily Kos — and the insidious thuggish Obamabot attack machine — for the more nurturing environs of The Confluence.)
SEE ALSO: RonK Seattle’s first installment, “The Audiology of Hope: DLC Dogwhistle Economics ,” in which he dissects the background and policies of Austan Goolsbee — yes that Goolsbee who shall forever be infamous for his conversations with the Canadian embassy to reassure them that Barack Obama wasn’t really against NAFTA. A RonK Seattle sampler on Goolsbee: He is “DLC senior economist.”
I am reminded of the column of Paul Krugman which I wrote about in February.
THE KEY POINT to keep in mind here is that the next president must be STRONG on policy as well as highly experienced and knowledgeable about the maneuverings of Congress in order to protect Social Security. That requires the next president be experienced in the ways of Washington, D.C. and be stalwhart in his/her determination to protect Social Security.
And must I add the obvious? That the next president must TRULY CARE about protecting Social Security?
Now, here’s what I wrote about and quoted from Dr. Krugman’s column in “Hmmm … who is Krugman talking about?“:
From “Don’t Rerun That ’70s Show,” NYT op-ed columnist and economist Paul Krugman, February 22, 2008 — the conclusion:
[E]ven if the next president is a Democrat, any serious stimulus plan would face intense, ideologically motivated opposition in Congress. Will the next president be prepared to fight for an effective plan? Or will we end up with a compromise like the one Congressional Democrats agreed to this year, legislation that assuages conservative objections at the cost of undermining the plan’s effectiveness?
Until recently, I thought the biggest political struggle facing the next president was likely to be over health care reform. But right now it looks as if the first thing on the next administration’s plate will have to be dealing with a weak economy.
And if effective action isn’t forthcoming, the next president will suffer the fate of Jimmy Carter, who began his administration with words of uplift — “Let us create together a new national spirit of unity and trust” — and ended up delivering America into the hands of the hard right.
Could Krugman be thinking about this candidate, whose first economic stimulus plan Krugman called “disreputable” and whose second plan the economist found “tilted to the right“?
I remain in a state of shock that the Democratic party leadership could be led by the nose by Barack Obama — who cares not a bit about policy — but instead is solely focused on grabbing complete and utter control.
That’s why he selects economic advisers — who themselves have great power and means — regardless of whether those advisers “tilt” to the right and advocate the privatization of Social Security.
What those advisers believe and advocate matters not to Obama. All he cares about is their ability to help him grab power. Goolsbee is a prime example of an economist with a POWER BACKGROUND, a man of means who is superbly CONNECTED to the elite power structure in this country.
RonK Seattle (I repeat this for emphasis) describes Goolsbee’s resume that shows how well-connected he is:
Goolsbee. Economic wunderkind, forensics champ, MIT PhD, Yale Bonesman out of Waco via Milton Academy, Obama’s chief / top / senior economic spokesman and senior policy advisor.
Oh, and DLC senior economist. … (Read more here.)
It is Goolsbee’s powerful connections that Obama desires. Not his policy views and advice. Which I maintain Obama cares not about.
by Ronald Scott
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