Democratic senators are still emerging from their closed-door briefing with Obama economic adviser Larry Summers ... but a senior Democratic senator, Iowa progressive Tom Harkin, just gave me a dire buzzword: trickle-down.
"There's only one thing we've got to do in this stimulus, and that's create jobs," Harkin told me. "I'm a little concerned by the way Mr. Summers and others are going on this ... it still looks a little more to me like trickle-down."
In this post, I am not going to discuss the validity of the tax cuts themselves. I consider them worrying just as Harkin, Conrad and Kerry do, but there is another pattern emerging today that I find just as worrying: progressive concerns being intentionally ignored and / or snubbed by the transition. Here is the last line in the TPM article (more in the extended entry):
When I asked if he [Senator Harkin] felt his concerns were heard during the meeting, he looked to the floor and slowly shook his head. It was almost forlorn.
Now, here is an AP source on the absence of Howard Dean at new DNC chair Tim Kaine's press event today (emphasis mine):
"My understanding is that he's traveling, so he couldn't attend," said Tommy Vietor, an Obama spokesman.
Obama's transition officials, however, did not immediately respond when asked whether the former Vermont governor was invited to appear alongside the president-elect and Dean's successor at the news conference.
But Democrats with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the Obama team, say Dean won't attend the event at the request of Obama advisers.
Howard Dean, an important figure for the progressive grassroots, appears to have been intentionally snubbed at Tim Kaine's press event. Tom Harkin doesn't feel as though widespread Democrats concerns over business tax cuts in the stimulus package are even being addressed in meetings with the Obama economic team. This worrying suggests that progressives aren't even invited to the conservation over the stimulus and how to operate the DNC.
And here is the kicker: it is highly likely that while progressives are being snubbed, the business tax cuts were added to the stimulus in order to attract unnecessary, and entirely symbolic, support from a significant number Republicans. Symbolic bipartisanship for the sake of symbolic bipartisanship is valued more than even listening to progressives. This is what I was worried about back in November and December when Open Left fought against a Larry Summers appointment, and openly worried about other appointments. Only now, the "progressives unhappy with Obama" narrative has gone beyond recycling quotes from me, and includes left-wing rabble rousers like John Kerry and Kent Conrad.
If Harkin, Conrad and Kerry are the people expressing progressive concerns over the business cuts in the stimulus package, then it is probably time that we get their backs. What say you?
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