I was invited on CNN to discuss my recent series of posts at OpenLeft (here, here and here) about the appointment of a Goldman Sachs lobbyist as the chief of staff at the Treasury Department - about as clear a conflict of interest as there ever was, considering that Goldman Sachs has received billions of dollars in bailout money from Treasury (and could get more in the future). You can watch the clip here.
What's amazing - and amazingly gross - is how Goldman Sachs has the power to keep itself so plugged into the top reaches of our government for so many years. From Bob Rubin to Hank Paulson to Josh Bolton and not to Mark Patterson, this one company has been muscling its way into our government for the better part of two decades. And not surprisingly, we've had two decades of financial deregulation and now rivers of taxpayer cash to Wall Street.
In terms of the Obama administration's selection of the Goldman Sachs lobbyist, I'd say coming from Tim Geithner - a committed free market fundamentalist ideologue - it's not surprising, even knowing how hypocritical the appointment is in juxtaposition to Obama's declaration that lobbyists "won't find a job in my White House"* and his subsequent declaration on Day One of his presidency that lobbyists aren't welcome to work on the issues in his administration that they lobbied on for corporations.
In the CNN interview, Kiran Chetry plays devil's advocate and asks whether preventing lobbyists from entering government would mean a presidential administration wouldn't have its pick of the most experienced and best people for top government jobs. This is the standard argument in Washington, D.C. to justify the revolving door, and - of course - it's absurd and insulting. I'm sorry, but there are 300 million people in America, and it's simply not credible to claim that the only person qualified for a top government job is a person who lobbied the government for a corporation looking for a handout. The whole idea that qualifying experience means being a paid corporate shill is insulting.
The idea that Lynn is "uniquely qualified" - the White House's language - for the post is simply bogus. The phrase doesn't mean merely good or talented; it means that Lynn, of all the possible candidates for the position, is the only person who could fill it.
"While Lynn may be well qualified, it is absurd to argue that he is uniquely qualified," says Danielle Brian, head of the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group in Washington. "There are plenty of people with far greater business-management experience than that of a lobbyist."
Amen to that. And while, as I said in the CNN interview, Obama is to be applauded for issuing some of the strongest ethics guidelines in White House history, we can't simply pretend that there's nothing wrong with appointing corporate lobbyists to top government jobs. Whethe those appointments come in the Bush administration or the Obama administration they undermine the public's faith in government, and - even more important - can negatively influence policy for special interests.
* Technically, I guess you could argue that the most high-profile appointments of lobbyists - Patterson and Lynn - weren't in the White House, and so that doesn't directly undermine Obama's original promise. You could, of course, argue over what the definition of "is" is...That is, you could parse out this stuff, but clearly, the appointments undermine the spirit of the pledge - especially when you consider that there were also lobbyists in the presidential transition, at other agencies, etc.
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