Union Critical Of Obama's Top Economic Aide, Slams "Rubinomics"

The New York Times:

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.

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.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[americaforme]

Sneaking around the back door, with Clintons cronies doesn't get it. Obama be carefull you are not elected yet. Anything that even looks like Big Corporate envolvement, lobbist tricks, expansion of global trade while America cries out for justice incurrs rath. We dont want Clinton, or we would have voted her in.,

[ErnestineBass]

Slate ran the following piece by Jason Furman. Fairly interesting.

http://www.slate.com/id/2188153/?from=rss

[PKSSK]

Thank you for the link to the article by Jason Furman. He actually articulates a common sense approach to attack the US budget inflation of the last 7 years. He actually leaves one with the impression that he is smarter than Rubin or at least has learned from the many mistakes of Rubin. I hope Jared Burnstein has a major voice, as an economic advisor to Obama, as he is one of the few I have followed who gets it!!!