JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to turn also now to Max Fraser, who joins us. He’s with The Nation magazine. He’s written an article recently called "Subprime Obama," where he looks at the housing crisis, and initially the article dealt with--John Edwards was still in the race--with the positions of Edwards, Clinton and Barack Obama on the housing crisis sweeping the nation. Welcome to Democracy Now!
MAX FRASER: Thanks for having me.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Could you outline the differences between--the major differences between the candidates? And it would be instructive also to talk about John Edwards's policies, as well.
MAX FRASER: Sure. Well, when he was in the race, Edwards’s plan was by far the most comprehensive and aggressive, insofar as it really committed the government to intervening on behalf of homeowners and resolving the crisis in such a way that it would keep people from losing their homes. Edwards called for a mandatory moratorium on foreclosures, a freeze on rising interest rates, a real kind of redoubled efforts to not only regulate the mortgage markets, but financial markets generally.
Clinton and Obama fall short of that, and Obama falls short most significantly. He is the only one of the three who hasn't called for a moratorium on foreclosures or a freeze on interest rates, which really are the most effective short-term measures that can be taken to keep homeowners in their homes. And beyond that, his plan calls for the least aggressive government intervention, the most limited spending to bail out homeowners and to especially borrowers who are at risk of defaulting on their mortgages and to help them restructure their loans in such a way that they're affordable moving forward. And his plan actually really most relies on a pretty insignificant tax credit, which comes out to about $500 on average for homeowners, which might make a difference for those who are just barely falling behind, but not for those who are falling further and further behind.
AMY GOODMAN: Max, in your piece, "Subprime Obama," you talk about his three main economic advisers.
MAX FRASER: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us who they are.
MAX FRASER: Well, there are these three young economists: David Cutler, Jeffrey Liebman and Austan Goolsbee. Cutler and Liebman are Harvard economists who hail from the Clinton administration. Goolsbee, who does the lion's share of the work on this issue, comes from the University of Chicago. They're all centrist market economists, I mean, what you would call them Clintonian in their politics, and that's really where they're coming from. They are oriented towards, you know, market-based solutions to social welfare issues. Cutler writes about incentivizing the healthcare industry as a way to improving care. Liebman has endorsed the partial privatization of Social Security. And Goolsbee also is one of the kind of market faithful.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Yeah, I'd like to ask you about Liebman in particular, because I think that, from what I understand, he is proposing a--has proposed for a 20 percent increase in the Social Security payroll tax to, in essence, create private accounts for all Americans. It would be like the equivalent of dues check-off for Wall Street.
MAX FRASER: Yeah.
JUAN GONZALEZ: It would be an enormous windfall for the Wall Street firms to be able to get that kind of a operation.
MAX FRASER: Right.
JUAN GONZALEZ: But it's not clear--Obama has never said anything about this in the campaign trail, but his key adviser is known as the main proponent of this, right?
MAX FRASER: Well, one of the--a proponent of it, that's right, entirely true. And, you know, Obama, I think what he says on the campaign trail on various issues of domestic policy are, you know, not wholly in line with where these policy advisers are, but they clearly are animating where he stands on these issues, like Social Security and the housing crisis, most notably, I think.
The above is from Friday's Democracy Now! and one thing we'd like to turn to is thanking Juan Gonzalez because before Gonalzes brought Max Fraser into the conversation it was Drone Central with swipes at Hillary (and laughable defenses of Bambi). Thing is though, the above wasn't played over Pacifica airwaves. It's fund raising time for Pacifica and Democracy Now! is reduced in air time to make time to ask for money. And on stations, such as KPFA, where it airs twice, they didn't use the second airing to feature anything but Robert Kuttner.
Ah, yes, Robert Kuttner, the man who's spent forever turning himself into Paul Krugman nemisis. It was interesting to follow that. How many sentences will it take Kuttner to introduce Krugman into the conservation?
Seven.
"Clinton and some liberal commentators, like Paul Krugman, have whacked Obama for not having a mandate," Kuttner declared.
What was especially interesting was that Paul Krugman's argument about the flaws in Obama's health care plan was being dismissed to Democracy Now!'s audience when . . . formerly frequent DN! guest Krugman has never been invited on to discuss the topic.
Do you get that?
Krugman, a frequent guest, has never made his argument on the program. But Krugman's self-created nemisis can come on to distort it. Which, for the record, he did.
Here's Kuttner again, "Clinton has what’s known as a mandate. She requires people to get coverage. Obama doesn't. Clinton and some liberal commentators, like Paul Krugman, have whacked Obama for not having a mandate. I think a mandate is a very bad idea. I think the difference between universal social insurance and a mandate is that universal social insurance, like Medicare, says that, as an American or a permanent resident of the country, you get health insurance, the same way you get Social Security. A mandate takes a social problem and makes it the individual’s problem." Try to follow that 'logic.' Kuttner's arguing bad Hillary Clinton has a mandate and Obama's not for mandates!
That is the talking point from the Bambi camp. It's not, however, reality. Obama does have a mandate in his program as well. When Kuttner's lies are called out, watch how Kuttner tries to spin:
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I'd like to ask you, in terms of the mandates issue, because obviously both Krugman, in his various articles, and Clinton have claimed, on the one hand, that Obama does have mandates--he has mandates for coverage of all children--so that the mandates issue is not a principled issue, it's a tactical issue as to what you think could be approved. Your sense of that?
ROBERT KUTTNER: My point is that a mandate, in a situation where the whole system is sick, makes that sickness the problem of the individual. Instead of putting a gun to people's heads, typically people who can't afford good quality insurance, and saying to them, "You must, under penalty of law, or pay a tax or pay a fine, go out and find decent insurance," it's so much better policy to just have insurance for everybody. Then there's no question of a mandate.
I think it's a very bad position for progressives to back into, because it signals that government is being coercive, rather than government being helpful. Now, we can split hairs and argue whether Obama is being principled or tactical, but I think his discomfort with the idea of a mandate is something that I applaud.
Did you hear a discussion of mandates? No, you heard Kuttner confess to his crush -- he "applaud"s his crush. His crush that has mandates in his plan. It's a funny sort of standard and one that we hear over and over from the Bambi groupies -- "Bambi doesn't do that! Oh, well he does do it, but it makes him uncomfortable!" Like when Allan Nairn declared, okay, Bambi does take money from Big Business but just because, if he didn't, Big Business would attack him. No matter what the issue, the groupies manage to ignore it and find a way to justify Bambi's actions.
When it's time for Kuttner to add his two cents to Gonzalez and Fraser, the first thing he does is circulate a lie. "I think it was National Journal," he works in because he wants to, "recently came out with a rating that showed that Obama has the most left-of-center record."
Do you get how lame that is to offer? No?
Janine Jackson addressed The National Journal's 'rankings' in last week's CounterSpin and, thing is, someone like Kuttner should have already been aware of it because this pops up every four years.
Janine Jackson: In the run up to the 2004 presidential election, The National Journal magazine unveiled a study that found John Kerry was the most liberal senator. That ultra-liberal designation became a regular feature about Kerry's campaign. The magazine just unveiled its rankings for this year and, wouldn't you know it, the winner was another Democratic presidential contender: Barack Obama. And just like 2004, the magazine's ranking became big news even though few reporters or pundits bothered to look into its curious methodology. But anyone might find the ranking a bit odd. Is Obama really more liberal than, say, Russ Feingold or independent socialist Bernie Saunders? The magazine gets there by a complex process that considers only certain votes in certain categories, weights some of those votes to make them more important, and then decides what the liberal or conservative position would be. Looking at the actual votes, Obama -- ranked number one -- and Hillary Clinton -- ranked number sixteen -- differed exactly twice. For example on the matter of establishing an Office of Senate Integrity, Obama voted "yes" and Clinton "no." Supporting that Joe Lieberman amendment was taking the "liberal" position according to The National Journal. Their votes also differed on an immigration amendment. There are other rankings, like Voteview that found Obama around the tenth most liberal Democrat with Clinton somewhat further to his right. That would seem to make a lot more sense and that's in line with other vote rankings but none of those others get nearly as much attention as those from the Beltway publication The National Journal. If he is the eventual nominee, expect to hear the "Obama is the most liberal" line often in the press but don't expect many reporters to explain it.
And, for that matter, don't expect Robert Kuttner to explain it either. And feel especially sorry for WBAI listeners because they didn't hear Janine Jackson offering those truths -- CounterSpin didn't air on WBAI Friday, instead listeners got Amy Goodman for an additional hour of pledge time discussing Pacifica founder Lewis Hill's suicide . . . his 1957 suicide.
Who knows, maybe someday Krugman will be brought back on the show to address the differences between Obama and Clinton's health care? That would be "Paul Krugman, the award-winning New York Times op-ed columnist. He spoke recently in New York about the new class war in America. In addition to writing for the Times, Paul Krugman is a world-renowned economist. He teaches at Princeton University" (Goodman, June 19, 2006 broadcast of Democracy Now!). Maybe you've heard of him? "Paul Krugman was named Columnist of the Year by Editor & Publisher magazine. He teaches economics and international affairs at Princeton University -- his new book, just published, is The Conscience of a Liberal-- joining us now in our firehouse studio" (Goodman, October 17, 2007 broadcast of Democracy Now!).
Poor Krugman. A relic of shows past -- not unlike the former firehouse studio -- all because he didn't toe the line that Bambi pees rainbows and holy water.