Bernie Sanders To Vote Against Top Obama Nominee, Citing Ties To 'Failed Policies'

A liberal senator plans to vote against confirming President Barack Obama's nominee for a top White House economic position.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont who works closely with Democrats, said in a statement obtained by The Huffington Post that he won't vote to confirm Jacob "Jack" Lew, Obama's nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget because, after meeting with Lew, the senator "found too many echoes of the failed policies of the past in his responses to my questions on trade policy, Social Security, deregulation of banks and other issues."

"It is my strong belief that President Obama needs an OMB director who is willing to stand up to corporate America and the wealthy, say enough is enough, and fight for policies that protect the working class in this country," Sanders said in a statement. "Unfortunately, I do not believe Mr. Lew is the right man at this time for this important job."

During a confirmation hearing last week, Lew told the Senate Budget Committee that he didn't believe that deregulation led to the recent financial crisis. Lew, who if confirmed will be returning to a post he held during the last few years of the Clinton administration, served during an era that saw the deregulation of Wall Street in the form of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/progressive-senator-to-vo_n_735655.html

nt

Do it, Bernie. Hold them there until they are good 'n hot.

keep punching until the candy comes out!!!

Why'd Bill Clinton appoint him then?

Clinton's biggest contributor was the Walton family and they are union busting slave labor supporters.

Is it any wonder that every major policy that took down our economy was made into law during Clinton's 8 year terms? Yeah, the Republicans, under Reagan, set us up for all of this, but it was Clinton's DLC team working with the Republican Congress that cut our throats.

His policies were kinder and gentler Republican policies, especially in this area.

... kinder and gentler employment figures, budget numbers, and household incomes. The results of his policies were excellent.

but NAFTA really did end up being that big sucking sound that Ross Perot predicted.

Certainly NAFTA/free trade in general has a lot of negative consequences for certain domestic industries. I don't disagree with you there.

Still, I think Democrats should be proud of the Clinton era economy, and use that as a contrast with how badly the Republicans screwed everything up.

The big dog did a fair amount of good on certain issues but that does not mean progressives and liberals are going to forget anytime soon that he governed from the center-right, same as Obama. That ship has sailed, that bird has flown the coop. It's easy to govern well in the present and sow the seeds of future destruction...you praise Clinton for his economy; I blame him for Obama's, Bush merely exacerbated the damage Clinton had done.

Liberals are finally pissed off and a reckoning has come to the DNC...move left towards the will of the people or suffer increasing alienation from the base. It's not like we expect them to become European-styled Social Democrats but they're to the right of the electorate and the only alternative given to the American people is farther to the right. The last time that happened, the will of the people was this far removed from either political party, it resulted in the greatest political seismic shift this nation has ever seen. Over the span of about 20 years, the Whigs became marginalized out of existence to be replaced by the northernist pro-industrial, anti-agrarian populist Republican party of Lincoln. (Remember the Whigs were the party "opposed to slavery" who claimed that they were not empowered to end it. The Whigs did a lot of that whole being vocal then compromising away from the will of the people thing. It didn't work then or now.) The message to Democrats is clear: nourish the roots or perish.

As G. W. F. Hegel said though: "Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it."

Budget surplus, 4% unemployment, calm inflation, highest median household income ever.

If it's so easy to govern in the present, why has no other president of late managed to come even close to matching the Clinton-era economy? The idea that it took eight years for the sinister seeds of Clinton's presidency to destroy the economy seems as fanciful as the oft-heard Republican claim that it was Reagan's policies that caused the boom of the 1990s.

In terms of nourishing the roots--my belief is the roots want good jobs, a good income, a country that's not in debt to foreign governments, low crime, and a country that's respected and even admired around the world. The roots want results, and the Clinton era delivered them.

About half our medical professionals are foreign. Yours aren't?

We have two nurses I can think of who have green cards and they are both excellent nurses. I would love to see both of them stay though one is terribly homesick for Korea and thinks she's a lousy nurse because English is her second language (she so isn't lousy!). Yeah, I know when I graduated, that was a big issue and I guess it still is. Just not on my unit.

wave of outsourcing manufacturing jobs reached a crescendo and deregulation destroyed the economy. Results aren't seen overnight.

to care about you when the tables are turned.

... to blame Clinton for things that happened eight years after he left office. On this same board we have people giving Obama credit for the Dow being around 10,800. The inconsistency is hard to understand.

And why are you accusing me of caring only about myself? Things like 4% unemployment and higher median household incomes are indicators of a broad prosperity--a rising tide that really did lift most boats, unlike the empty growth of the 2000s.

No question about it. You have the financial collapse as exhibit number one.

Clinton policies kept the middle class in jobs, homes and money. You are blaming Clinton for Bush failed policies. Once Bush was 'appointed' he set about changing everything that was in place for the worst. either you are misinformed or you never bothered to read up on the damage Bush did to this country.

If so, I might want to mail back my degrees in economics and political theory. If you'd like I'll go case-by-case for you, but the general gist is Bill Clinton sowed the seeds of the destruction of the American economy and the middle class. All Bush did was spread the shit over them that nourished them to grow faster.

Much like fruit flies in a honey pot, things look great at first as the colony explodes in abundance. Soon the colony crashes terminally as it literally drowns in its' own waste. So is our economy...it's too bad the robber-barons didn't realize they were going to have to live in it...like good little objectivists, they thought they could take the spoils and go live in happy enclaves of Galtian bliss, leaving us with the mess and decay.

The problem is as it's been since the 1970s, monetarism is a failure of policy that the moderate wing of the Democratic Party bought into when the conservatives started to pimp it because its' message of the allowable nature of fiscal recklessness, free trade, free enterprise and tax cuts is about as appealing to Americans as a bacon double-double with mayo and extra cheese...about as healthy too. Some of us (mostly those of us who knew that Keynes was smarter than Hayek, Greenspan or Friedman even thought they were.) knew from moment-one that this was the end result of the DLC/GOP corporatist economy. Greed is not good, protectionism serves a purpose (and does not require one to beggar their neighbor with high tariffs either), protection of the middle class worker was far more important than maximizing profitability and you cannot tax-cut your way to prosperity.

So yes, Bill Clinton deserves plenty of the credit and blame.

one damn for poor people.

Yet, you keep coming to us for our votes.

HAH!

Clinton did the set up, but things stayed OK here so long as we had the dot.com bubble, but during those last three years there were thousands of factories being built in Mexico and China and Vietnam - American CEOs didn't just wake up one day after Bush was elected and say "I'm moving my business to China" - they had to have a place to move it TO - factories built, warehouses built, shipping organized. If a factory opened in China in 2002, it was being planned in 1998. AFTER NAFTA and CAFTA and the other acronyms had been put in place.

Those were the days!


:sarcasm: (in case you are an idiot)

We can't have that.

I'd rather not have so many Clinton era people in this administration, but it's ironical (ironically hysterical) to me that Hillary's supporters scream the loudest whenever one of them is nominated by Obama.

I didn't mean it as a reflection of Bernie Sanders' position, should have been more clear. I was just saying that it's comical to me that the biggest complainers about some of these appointments are former Hillary supporters and the appointments are the same people she would have relied on.

in the primaries. And you're right. These are exactly the kinds of appointments she would have made-one of the reasons she was my last choice in the primaries.

It's still a damn sight better than the alternative.

Thank goodness for Senators like Bernie Sanders. Seriously.

Great "Recession" another two years, at least.

Amazing how many still need to hide the truth from themselves!!

From the article:



Sort of a no brainer- but still....

for him to sellout to the Wall St execs.

At least no one can accuse the Democratic caucus of lockstep.

Is that something you can do to convince some folks you aren't in lockstep?

Thanks

Displaced

He definitely doesn't buy bullshit.

I listen to him every Friday on Thom Hartmann's show.

The man knows of what he speaks.

but Bernie Sanders being against him holds a lot of sway with me. Bernie Sanders is one of the good guys.

the economic collapse, I was less impressed.

Maybe Bernie is committed to the public good --

and Obama is committed to something more like Wall Street and corporate-profit?

The team picks --

continuing with a PRIVATIZED system of health care and even further "deforming" it --

attacks on public education --

wiretapping --

failure to prosecute --

inaction of DOJ --

on and on --

:)

he is stuck on the rich. obama does not have my support.

:dem:

Thank you Senator.

Wish the Senate had more like you...:loveya:

This is another egregious error by President Obama. I'm supposed to continue to support President Obama when he appoints people like this? How? How can I?

Lew is completely wrong in his assertion that deregulation didn't lead to the financial crisis. This assertion is just plain ridiculous. Deregulation and a lack of oversight led directly to the financial crisis. Without the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act there would never have been a crisis of this magnitude, not even close. This Lew guy is an insider, he is the very last kind of person that Obama should appoint. Why does Obama keep doing this kind of appointment?

I love Bernie Sanders!!!

The last of the Good.

sees through the bullshit and has the nerve to say it like it is. If we only had 99 more like'm. :(

:(

Wish he could hold backbone seminars in Washington.

Is Obama serious?

over Obama's any day, on almost any subject.

He was in charge of the Clinton deregulation in the late 90s.

Don't really need to know much more than that.

Yet another opportunity wasted by the president to include someone sane within the inner circle. But then again the inner circle is already bought and paid for, isn't it. Just one DLC stooge after another: a corporate "bulls on parade".

I can't help but think this is all some slow-motion shock doctrine (whether Ds or Rs are running the government). There are just enough "reforms" (improvements) to sort-of placate the port side of the boat while those in power (and their donor class) get wealthy at our expense. The bottom line: the fundamental power structures remain intact: healthcare, finance, the Pentagon, etc.

And we've seen President Obama's general reluctance in seriously challenging those power centers.

:woohoo:

might be an attempt to garner cred with the populace who generally feels he isn't too economically savvy.

NOT MY OPINION - JUST REPORTING WHAT I HEARD!

The Obama pick worked at Citigroup from 2006 until he joined Hillary Clinton's State Department in January 2009, rising to chief operating officer of the bailed-out bank's Alternative Investments unit, a Citi division that engaged in proprietary trading and invested in hedge funds and private equity groups. The Huffington Post reported in July that Lew's unit invested in a hedge fund king who made billions correctly predicting that U.S. homeowners would not be able to make their mortgage payments.



The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 9 to 0 on Tuesday morning in favor of Lew's nomination and referred him to the full Senate. The Senate Budget Committee expects to hold its vote Thursday.


What are the chances that we'll next be hearing that our own government is laundering drug money?

Way to go Bernie!

Too few.

(1) Society is not "polarized;" we have various shades of the far right;
(2) There is no opposition (in terms of anything with political clout) to the far right;
(3) NO institution (the media, the Democratic Party, school systems, etc.) wants ANYTHING to do with the "Left";
(4) corollary: The "Left" has been cut off and is no longer a player in American politics;
(5) Corporate power is in complete charge.

_________

The "Left" is roughly defined as anyone or thing to the left of HST or LBJ.

Good for you Senator Sanders.

Can't believe I didn't see that little gem posted yet in this thread...

Go Bernie!!

K&R!

... they haven't gotten their talking points on this one yet, the fax machine has been on the fritz and they still need to get the new stationery with the spiffy new logo ;-)

... and more and more people are waking up as to who is serving which Masters.

Or maybe I'm just an optimist today.

Obama gonna cave in and extend the bushit tax cuts for the RICH? I bet it happens...