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Obama’s First Misstep

Published 11/13/08 Craig Harrington - Print Article
E-mail - editor@economyincisis.org

President-elect Barack Obama’s first major decision following his election, his selection of Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, displays a troubling trend in his campaign. The last eight years have been so bad that people now look back to the Clinton administration with awe, completely overlooking the major flaws and errors of what turned out to be 2 terms of an uninspiring presidency.

Barack Obama has been surrounding himself with former Clinton aides – Emanuel was a staffer responsible for ramming NAFTA through Congress – and now seems poised to repeat the same mistakes of his party.

Emanuel was responsible for organizing weekly strategy sessions regarding how best to pressure members of Congress into approving NAFTA during the Clinton administration. In a column for The Wall Street Journal, he demanded that Congress pass the China Free Trade Deal which Economic Policy Institute believes could cost the United States up to 1 million jobs. Emanuel agrees that NAFTA has not lived up to expectations, but he refuses to recant his stance on “free-trade.” He, like almost all politicians, is as much a proponent of job-killing trade liberalization now as he ever was.

One of the key arguments against Barack Obama has always been his inexperience. Barack Obama has relatively little experience in American politics. The President-elect promised to surround himself with capable and experienced leaders – such as Joe Biden. Unfortunately his first cabinet level selection is a politician with a long history of being in the pocket of lobbyists, corporate PACs and Wall Street firms.

Perhaps Emanuel is no longer a hard-line Democrat sympathizer and is willing to work “from the center” as Obama has promised. Perhaps after making his money on Wall Street (to the tune of tens of millions in just a few years) he no longer wishes to prop up his personal fortune. Perhaps Rahm Emanuel is the best man for the job. Or, perhaps Barack Obama simply chose a Democrat with name recognition and a Washington pedigree.

More people voted in the 2008 Presidential Election than in any election in history. The nation voted for change, hope, peace and prosperity. What they may be given is the same regime, under a different name. Appointing Emanuel as the Chief of Staff, a man who advocates outsourcing and the disintegration of America’s manufacturing base through NAFTA, is not the change we were promised. We need strong leadership and an administration that has America’s best interest at mind, instead of leaders pushing their own ideals at the cost of our country’s sovereignty.

Front Page Photo by steveance - Flickr © Some rights reserved

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Article Comments From Readers

caharrington says "RE: "Who would you recommend?"" on 11/17/08
There is a lot of criticism, you're definitely right about that. But the simple truth is that there is a laundry list of availible candidates and Obama seems to be starting on the wrong foot by only picking Democrats. It is absolutely impossible that Democrats are the best availible men or women for the job, just as it is impossible that Libertarians or Republicans or Constitutionalists or whomever you choose is "best." The problem is also with his choice of Rahm Emanuel who has proven himself to be a "business minded" individual and an outspoken proponent of "free-trade."

Regarding his Chief of Staff, I do not know President-elect Obama closely enough to pressume to understand his personal needs. I personally feel that Colin Powell would be aptly suited for the job as a former Secretary of State, but he has shied away from public office and may decline any official appointment.

In other areas I feel Obama could make serious headway. Here are areas that are either vaccant or fielding inferior candidates

United States Comptroller General -> David Walker (former Comptroller General and biggest opponent of government over-spending, would be good candidate for Treasury Secretary)
Secretary of the United States Treasury -> Warren Buffet (unlikely to accept) or Paul Volcker (former Fed Chairman)
Secretary of State -> Colin Powell (former Secretary, unlikely to accept, certainly a better option than John Kerry or Hillary Clinton)
Attorney General -> Eric Holder
Secretary of Defense -> Chuck Hagel

This list could go on for days (check here for another take: http://www.dailypress.com/news/ny-obama_cabinet-pg,0,4758804.photogallery) but the point is that we need people willing to take charge and change things, not old Clinton cronies looking for another slice of the action.

guest says "Don't Expect Much Real Change from Obama on the Economic Front" on 11/13/08

Any advocates of "American Economy First" will be very disappointed as they watch the Obama presidency unfold (not that things would be any different under a McCain presidency).

Based on my newspaper reading, Obama seems to have bought into the conventional politically correct claptrap about how Americans are not competitive enough and how we need more and better education in order to compete. Also, when asked about people losing their jobs to foreigners on H-2B visas he responded with the standard claptrap about how they were doing jobs in fields that lacked enough qualified Americans.

Obama is likely to enact touchy-feely policies such as offering more subsidies for college education (for non-existent job positions) while doing little to actually address or even acknowledge the nation's real problems of Global Labor Arbitrage and the Global (and local) Malthusian Crisis.

guest says "length" on 11/12/08
article is very informative but lacks length. go more in depth with it you had me intrested and just stopped.

guest says "What change?" on 11/12/08
We can now see the disastrous results of what Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s new White House Chief of Staff, did to the detriment of America when he was President Clinton’s senior White House advisor - “ramming NAFTA through Congress” supporting “free trade” and outsourcing.

Look at how these policies have been instrumental in allowing foreign countries’ easy takeover of our wealth producing companies. As this site shows, we have lost 16,613 companies in 30 years, at closer look you can see this trend has been rapidly increasing. A huge percentage of these were sold in the past 8 years!

This is happening by giving foreign countries “free trade” access to ship anything they want into our country. Our lack of tariffs allows foreign companies to undercut our companies’ products and run up huge trade surpluses, if this site is correct the amount leaving us is $1.6 million per minute! ($800 billion per year)

We are importing goods, unrestricted, and it is out of control. Just like our forefathers time, but the next “Boston Tea Party” will have to be dumping Chinese goods into the harbor! How can we be so blind? Why aren’t we outraged?

Please President Obama, do not let Rahm Emanuel (a former high paid lobbyist and now your chief of staff) continue the damage that he initiated when he was in the Clinton Administration.

guest says "NAU" on 11/12/08
I really think that Barrack has been chosen to introduce the NAU to the public.

guest says "Who would you recommend?" on 11/12/08
There is a lot of criticism surrounding the selection of Emmanuel as Obama's Chief-of-Staff, but I haven't heard anyone mention who they think would have been a better selection? You seem to have a good grasp on the history here, so I wonder who you would have chosen instead?