Sunday, November 23, 2008

Obama Makes His Job Harder


Besides trying to deal with a collapsing American economy, President elect Obama has to deal with potentially contentious advisers. Political pundits call his appointment of "center right" Democrats a "good cop-bad cop" pairing. How often does a bad cop restrict his/her role to the interrogation room? They don't.

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fit the bad cop role. Neither are the promised new blood. They are known for hard nosed, pragmatic, finger snapping politics. They have corporate ties as deep as their Clinton White House roots. Many of those lead to America's favorite private equity underwriter (PEU), The Carlyle Group. A Carlyle affiliate, catering to the high net worth marketplace just pocketed $153 million from Hank Paulson's TARP.

What other campaign promises made their way into that D.C. sewer? The 3% tax increase for people making more than $250,000 a year may not come from an Obama proposed tax law change or budget proposal. It's now predicted to occur when the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011.

How will President elect Obama control those renegade staffers, while saving the economy? Achieving his campaign promises got a lot tougher. That is, if he really wants to deliver...

No comments: