Rahm:
President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming White House chief of staff challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won’t be acceptable.
“When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, ‘We’re OK with minor reform.’ I’m challenging you today, we’re going to have to do big, serious things,” Rahm Emanuel said, speaking to The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council, a conference convened to elicit corporate opinion on the challenges facing the new president.
Today’s announcement that Tom Daschle will be the Health Care Czar and Secretary of Health & Human Services, serves even more notice to the business world. And Rahm had more to say to the CEO’s:
Mr. Emanuel promised that a major economic stimulus would be “the first order of business” for Mr. Obama when he takes office Jan. 20. The focus of spending will be on infrastructure, specifically “green infrastructure,” which he said would include mass transit, upgraded electricity transmission lines, “smart” electrical meters that allow consumers to save money by using electricity at off-peak hours, and universal broadband Internet access, which he said would encourage telecommuting.
He stressed that the new administration would “throw long and deep,” taking advantage of the economic crisis to push wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy. “The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington,” Mr. Emanuel said.
People would do well to heed Emanuel’s message, lest they get a fist in the mouth or a dead fish in the mail. What’s emerging from Chicago is a clear preference for toughness and people that are forceful and smart enough to ram home Obama’s priorities. Obama is tapping experienced people but he’s doing it so that he can enact a lot of change very quickly. Obama clearly wants to cut down on the learning curve, avoid rookie mistakes, and send a message that he means business. As Emanuel makes abundantly clear, Obama is not trimming his campaign promises, he’s just using some old hands to usher his promises through Congress.
I am a little concerned about this:
Although these are “our” guys, this idea of pushing through wholesale changes by taking advantage of a crisis smells of disaster capitalism defined by Naomi Klein.
g.
It looks to me like the “taking advantage of the economic crisis” line is penned by Jonathon Weisman, the author of the article, and are not the words of Emmanuel. It might well be the take of some, like Weisman, that this aggressive approach being laid out by the Obama people is “taking advantage”. I prefer to look at it as expressed by Rahm in his own words.
I think that is a much better summation than Weisman’s pundit view.
Agreed.
There is an emerging global consensus that Governments need to spend big time to re-float economies and re-build confidence. Bush would have wasted it all out tax cuts or bailouts for the rich. Obama seems to be saying let spend all that money on stuff which rebuilds our infrastructure and helps poorer American. Not only is this more equitable, it makes good economic sense, as poorer families are ,ore likely to spend what money they have on US rather than imported goods
as Tom Daschle noted to Steve Clemons in August at The New America Foundation, and he’s right on, if we don’t bring on Universal Health Care, America capitalism dies this year. America is the only industrialized country with a health care crisis. America can’t compete.
And wait’ll you see how tough Rahm, is with those nasty Israelis!!!
Not.
AG
I don’t know re that. Rahm might be the only person with any credibility TO stand up to Israel. It’s an outside bet, of course. But I’d put a few cents on it.
I wish that it were otherwise.
I really do.
AG
I think you dismiss the credibility argument too cavalierly. It’s Obama’s mode of operation to establish trust first, then get down to the arm-twisting. I don’t like or trust Rahm much, but Lisa makes a good point: I can’t think of anybody better to finally talk some sense to the Likudnik regime. Whether he does, or has to, if another question, of course — but that applies equally to every other American administration you can imagine coming to power.
I think those of us suffering from early disappointments with some Obama appointments and statements (including me) would do well to remember the arc of his campaign. He started out bland and “centrist” and a lot of us despaired. By the end of the campaign, after he’d established credibility and brushed away the trivia attacks, he was talking about “spreading the money around” and other basic ideas that no presidential pol had dared utter in decades.
Seems like we’re seeing the beginning of a similar scenario: he establishes the basics, like being competent and “American” and “tough”, and then goes on to surprising us with bits of his big vision for what change means. It does feel like a pattern where he gets entrenched and earns widespread trust as a guy that can take care of business. THEN he uses that trust to sell ideas that no longer seem so alien. IOW, kind of the opposite of the “100 days” frenzy so beloved by the yapping classes, which (as with Clinton) generally turns into a tempest ending with nothing accomplished except disappointed friends and energized enemies.
Or maybe I’m just kidding myself. What do you think?
What appointments are you disappointed about?
I am uncomfortable with Rahm Emanuel in such a massive position of power, but I’d definitely feel safe if he was representing my interests. And I like his picks for Deputy Chief of Staff.
Hillary is not Secretary of State, yet.
Holder and Daschle are great picks.
Mike Lux and Jesse Lee are great picks for his communications team.
What’s the problem?
link
Well, I think State is the wrong place for Hillary, but you’re right — that isn’t a done deal. The disappointment is more a matter of tone: “reaching out” to Lieberman, putting out feelers to Hagel, the large DLC contingent juxtaposed with the absence of any all-round progressives being talked about for the initial team.
Which is what led me to the Obama modus operandi theory above. Do you see any reasonable parallel between his campaign arc and the way he seems to be starting his presidency?
I don’t know.
You need to define what you mean by ‘progressive’ in this context. I get the feeling that people think ‘progressive’ means ‘outsider’ or something.
I think we’ll see plenty of new blood but it will be in less prominent posts that are announced later.
Obama is going to staff up with a broad coalition. So, you’ll see some progressive picks. But they may go to Labor or Transportation or HUD.
I see a direct connection between his post-partisan message and his post-partisan actions. He’s not trying to pick petty fights and is, instead, trying to get things done. That’s exactly what he said during the campaign. He clearly thinks the petty personality conflicts are worthless and hindering the progress of America and he wants to get past them.
Dave W, I soooo hope you are correct!
Tell that to the folks at Open Left who are on a rampage about how he’s a closet Republican.
I tried to warn you, and you blew me off.
Enemies will be made.