Methinks Jonathan Alter Has Been Hornswoggled
From the Huffington Post:
Alter's 'The Promise' Epilogue: Obama Team's Dysfunction Prompted Lack Of Focus On Jobs; Bill Clinton Annoyed At White House: The Obama administration's perceived failure to take laser-like aim at the unemployment crisis was partly due to the dysfunctional relationship between White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, top economic adviser Larry Summers and senior adviser David Axelrod, specifically the intransigence of Summers, according to Alter:
The inability to pivot in 2010 to a single-minded focus on jobs was a by-product of what one senior aide called "dysfunction" between Emanuel, Summers, and Axelrod. Rahm had always admired Larry, but he was becoming exasperated with his failure to give him a jobs plan he could sell. 'Week after week, Rahm would say, 'Let's explore this' or 'How about that?' and Larry would slow-walk everything,' recalled one senior advisor. 'He basically doesn't believe in the government helping small business'...
As near as I can see, what Larry Summers wanted--what the whole fracking economic team wanted--was for the President to endorse and lobby for policies that would reduce unemployment. What they were opposed to was "symbolic" stimulus that increased the national debt, gave money away to rich people running not-so-small-businesses, and was unlikely to do a fracking thing to reduce unemployment.
Pushing for policies that you say are going to reduce unemployment when all they are going to do is increase the national debt and give money away to people who are already rich strikes me as bad politics and bad policy. But what do I know? I am shrill...
