Submitted by Illinoisnoki1 on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 14:52

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Lew in, Daley out.  But the Song Remains the Same

President Obama said 'Good bye' to Chief of Staff Bill Daley and 'Hello' to the new guy, Jacob Lew.  Ho Hum, Lew's bio reads like a neo-liberal loyalist.

Here's the scoop from Randolph Sherman, PDA member from Western Pennsylvania.  

[Randolph Shannon] Lew is the United States Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. According to Wikipedia, Lew sits on the Brookings-Rubin funded Hamilton Project Advisory Board. He also served with Robert Rubin in Bill Clinton’s cabinet as Director of OMB.

Like many affiliates of the Hamilton Project, along with Barack Obama, Lew believes that fiscal discipline needs to be applied to Social Security (not much talk about runaway costs in the military budget). According to the New York Times, Lew has testified that:

“Fiscal discipline is essential to protect Social Security and strengthen Medicare, so that both will be there in the years ahead. Reducing the accumulated federal debt will help us to protect these important programs.” (Congressional testimony in March 2000.)

Also like Robert Rubin, Lew has worked with Citicorp. The New York Times reported (same link as above) that:

As executive vice president of New York University, he tangled with a union representing graduate students who help teach courses.

From Firedog Lake:  The Hamilton Institute is notable for its board, including Sen. Obama, Robert Rubin, Peter Orszag (former OMB director), and lately Jacob Lew who leaves OMB to be new White House Chief.  Here is inaugural event of the Brookings Institute project. I recommend listening to Obama's speech to get some insight to his economic views and his appointments to the White House.

Here and in part 2 here from Firedog Lake is a pretty comprehensive analysis of Hamilton Institute and Obama's speech there that those who oppose neoliberal economic policy see as the 'smoking gun' exposing his support for austerity.

--
Randy Shannon
yours for the People's Budget,
PA 4th CD Chapter, Progressive Democrats of America