February, 13 2009, 01:00pm EDT
Conservative Solutions to a Radical Crisis
Kuttner: Obama's problem is his economic appointees are averse to radical solutions to a radical crisis.
WASHINGTON
"Sometimes, I think
the team of rivals is Obama versus his own staff because I think his
own instincts are somewhat better than theirs, but until he gets
control of this they are going to be pulling him to the right," says
Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect Magazine.
Kuttner
argues that Obama's economic advisors are plagued by conventional
thinking on everything from budget deficits to the role of government.
Even his Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, is only
rebuilding the old failed system through his banking bill.
"I
think he ended up with a bunch of centrists at best who were the
perpetrators, along with the Republicans in Congress, of all this
deregulation that got us into this problem," says Kuttner.
"Here's
Rubin, he's been twice disgraced. He was disgraced as Treasury
Secretary, when you look at all the deregulation he presided over.
Then he was disgraced again as the guy who helped run Citigroup into
the ground, but he still has this ability to pull the strings in terms
of the number of proteges who he's placed in key positions in terms of his own son being on the transition team in a key power role."
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