“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street,” President Obama told “60 Minutes” onSunday, the eve of White House meeting with top Wall Street bankers. This line, and the credulous media coverage that followed, fed the image of Obama as the people’s crusader against the wealthy special interests.
But if you skip the rhetoric and focus instead on verifiable facts — campaign contributions, administration appointees, White House visitor logs, Obama’s bailouts and even his proposed regulations — you see instead that Obama may be closer to Wall Street than any modern president.
Obama raised $14.8 million from Wall Street in the 2008 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — more than any politician ever, and more than George W. Bush raised in both of his elections combined. From the fattest cat, Goldman Sachs, Obama raised $997,095, more than four times McCain’s Goldman haul and more than any candidate has raised from any single company since the McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulations.
Then there’s the revolving door between Wall Street and the West Wing, spinning as rapidly as ever. Citigroup’s and Goldman’s tentacles into the White House have been well-documented by Obama critics on the Right (most thoroughly by Michelle Malkin in her best-seller “Culture of Corruption”) and the Left (most famously by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone).
And on the substance, Obama’s policies and proposals have been a boon to Wall Street interests.
Begin with the bailout. Back in September 2008, Barack Obama was the only man outside of the Bush administration who could have blocked that $700 billion corporate welfare boondoggle. Had Obama opposed this transfer of wealth to fat-cat bankers, it would have died in the Democrat-controlled Congress. Since becoming president, Obama has ramped up the bailout machine, notably by creating a new double bailout program called the Public-Private Investment Partnership that relies on subsidies from both the FDIC and the Federal Reserve.
Then Obama rewarded the captains of Team Bailout 2008. Timothy Geithner, who ran the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, steered government through the creative bailouts of Bear Stearns and AIG. Obama put Geithner in charge of Treasury (and Geithner picked a Goldman Sachs lobbyist as his chief of staff). Obama also renominated Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the other savior of the Wall Street giants last fall. Obama praised him for his “outside-the-box” thinking.
For a president who talks like a reluctant bank saver, Obama certainly has bought into the bailout apparatus with enthusiasm.
But with his new regulations, Obama claims he’s calling these banks to heel after using taxpayer money to save them. This is just more example of Obama’s shadowboxing. In truth, he’s nearly on the same page as the bankers. The AP reported Monday that Wall Street CEOs “believe the president has mischaracterized them as being against the new rules, when in fact they support the vast majority of the administration’s proposals.”
“I have no intention of letting their lobbyists thwart reform,” Obama warned. But neither, apparently, do the lobbyists. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the lobby for Wall Street, applauded the House’s passage of financial regulation last week, stating, “There is no doubt that the industry shares the same goal of reforming our financial system as President Obama and the Congress.”
Obama’s tough talk towards lobbyists looks even more absurd when you see who these lobbyists are. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, ING and the Investment Company Institute are all clients of the Podesta Group, co-founded by Obama’s transition director, John Podesta, and the first K Street firm to hire away an Obama administration official.
Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Futures Industry Association, the Managed Funds Association and SIFMA are all clients of Steven Elmendorf, a top Democratic lobbyist who has visited the White House at least five times. American Bankers Association lobbyist Edward Yingling has visited at least six times.
These banks and lobbies have some disagreements with the president, but they are not the intransigent opponents he portrays them to be. But admitting to cordial relations with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan would pierce Obama’s crusader image. As his climate bill turns into a corporate porkfest and his health care reform turns into an insurer’s and drug maker’s dream, Obama needs to keep at least one imaginary corporate enemy.
Timothy P. Carney, The Examiner’s lobbying editor, can be reached at [email protected]. He writes an op-ed column that appears on Friday.
