Harold Ford / David Gregory: Rubin & Summers say Obama won't roll back Bush tax cuts ("& shouldnt")

[Leopolds Ghost]

They just said "voices inside the upper levels of the Obama campaign are privately talking about how this is one of those campaign promises Obama CANNOT AFFORD to honor in light of the current economic situation."

$4 trillion dollars to prop up an OVER-valued stock market Ponzi scheme = necessary and essential new spending.

Roll back Bush tax cuts = empty campaign promise overturned by DLC insiders in the new Treasury Dept???

Is anyone noticing the quiet installation of these people in Obama's inner circle?

Rubin, who helped IMPLEMENT the anti-union, pro-outsourcing Clinton economy that was dedicated to moving jobs offshore?

Summers, who helped IMPLEMENT the destruction of the New Deal banking system in order to make Citigroup and Bank of America the world's largest sovereign economic power?

And now Harold Ford says (with his typical shit-eating grin) they are lying to us.

[Leopolds Ghost]

1. Someone prove Harold Ford wrong, kay?

What should we expect the next President will do here?

[orwell]

2. Well if Harold Ford and David Gregory say it...

...it must be so!

Give me a break.

Shifting of the tax burden would have nothing to do with potential economic growth. It is a canard.

The world economies are in trouble because of too much debt, pure and simple. If it has anything to do with tax rates it is tangential. Running 1/2 trillion dollar deficits with no end in sight is a long term recipe for disaster. Taxes must be raised or spending must be cut. The top classes have made out like bandits for the last 25+ years. If the burden must be shifted it must be shifted upward.

[SoCalDem]

5. Super rich tax rate should be at least 50%

Back when USA USA USA was truly #1, the rate was WAAAAAY higher..and our infrastructure was in much better shape then..

rich folks have gotten a free ride for long enough.. we "middles" are tired of carrying all the water..

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. They are quoting senior sources in the (neoliberal) upper echelons of Dem Treasury

Guys like Summers and Rubin who helped engineer the current crisis by helping craft the destruction of the New Deal, something Gingrich and Reagan was never able to achieve on their own.

I've read up on these people and they sincerely believe in drowning the federal government and enriching the rich in order to create some sort of "new class" of extra-national, permanent wealth that will fuel the international economy on a trickle-down basis.

Summers' second in command has come out and talked about how he pushed to regulate hedge funds and CDS's and Summers treated him like a madman, saying Summers was a major force for the illegal rescension of the Glass-Steagall act. Rubin and Summers gave Citibank and Nationsbank permission to change their name to "banc" in order to subvert the banking law that had been in place since the New Deal to prevent consolidation of the banking industry that is now officially desired federal policy on both sides of the aisle.

"Concentration of capital" = Citigroup and "Banc" of America now control tens of trillions in assets, making them bigger and more powerful than the federal government. The perfect revolving door for guys like Rubin and Summers. And making them "big enough to deserve welfare" because in America, "only winners deserve welfare."

That is the new philosophy at work.

[melody]

3. How does changing the pocket out of which one pulls money impact the economic situation?

Sounds like Harold and David are trying to save their own billfolds.

[ejpoeta]

4. the problem I have with the tax cut issue is.... how the hell do we pay for all the crap we are

spending on? Iraq? bailout? sure, no one likes to pay taxes. but they sure bitch when the roads have all those potholes. and the schools aren't doing what they should. and when we have to pay towards school things. taxes are a necessary thing. period. someone has to pay for all those things they want their government to provide to them. if we want to pay down our debt, then we have to pay taxes. this debt we have been accruing is a national security issue. what are we going to do when china comes a calling? People need to think of that. with the debt and our oil fetish, we are not the great country we think we are.

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. They can argue that some taxes are necessary but nothing above what Bush found acceptable

That seems to be the DLC line.

[endthewar]

7. Bush tax cuts don't expire until 2010.

Ford and Gregory have no clue what the economy will be like then. Anyone who truly believes that Obama likes Bush's tax policies is out of their freakin' mind.

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. He needs to keep Rubin and Summers out of Commerce/Treasury then.

Those guys are poison. They represent an entire professional class within the party that is pro-wealth and anti-manufacturing on these shores.

I don't hear a single person in America talking about how exporting dirty jobs to China is not the "green" thing to do.

Exporting dirty jobs to countries with fewer regulations in order to pad out our own environmental reputation (by "retraining" / putting people out of work and covering up non-outsourcable activities such as "clean coal" strip mining which they intend to do NOTHING to stop) makes the impact on the environment WORSE.

[endthewar]

11. Obama has talked about how exporting jobs is an un-American thing to do

Doesn't really matter if it's the "green" thing to do or not, he doesn't want companies shipping jobs overseas.

[Leopolds Ghost]

15. it matters to the upscale Rubin/Summers crowd. They only want to keep the "green" jobs on-shore.

That's all I ever hear the neoliberal types talk about... even when union guys come on Ed Schultz for chrissake.

Nobody ever mentions how dependent we have become on dirty overseas industry. They don't seem to want those jobs to come back, just replace them with "green" jobs (that import raw materials from aforementioned dirty jobs).

Just now, on Hardball, they said the campaign was not going after working class, socially conservative union voters in Western PA, but an upscale/downscale coalition. Not sure how true this is but I'd bet over half the Party activists even in ultra-liberal pockets are solidly in the upscale dem / socially liberal, economically center right bias. They (well spoken, college-based rank and file party activists) don't even realize their economic ideas are not progressive because they simply don't like those socially conservative union guys.

[ikojo]

10. these guys represent the same organizations

that brought us the mess we're in now. They are rich and have benifitted from Bush's tax cuts, especially Rubin and other CEO's.
One should not be surprised they feel this way. Obama would do well to ignore any advice proffered by the DLC.

[Winterblues]

12. Well they obviously do not understand anything Obama stands for then.

There are certain tenets that are not negotionable. This happens to be one of them.. Nothing he stands for can be even attempted without raising taxes on the ultra wealthy. It is basic in every single issue...

[Median Democrat]

13. So, Rubin & Summers Are Against Bill Clinton's Tax Brackets?

Obama's taxes are even less than under Bill Clinton, since he only restors the 36% and 39.6% tax brackets? So, Harold Ford is saying that Robert Rubin and Laurence Summers are against Clinton-level tax brackets? Are they saying that Bill Clinton's tax brackets are a mistake?

[Leopolds Ghost]

16. They fought to lower them, as I recall. It was Reich and (??) who held down the liberal fort

Where is Reich in the party circle now? Has he been promised an advisorship?

[southernleftylady]

14. I had Harold on one of my flights and I let him have it..

I told him that if I wanted to vote for a republican I would have and he needs to stand up for we elected him for and not to follow lock step with the repukes! lol just another day at the office :)

[AtomicKitten]

17. Obama said he intends to let those tax cuts expire - not "roll them back."

I used to like Harold Ford, but he's become a real poseur.