Top GOPer praises Obama picks

Gene Sperling to replace Larry Summers as head of National Economic Council
President Obama on Friday named Gene Sperling director of the National Economic Council, choosing a Veteran of the Clinton Administration Budget battles to navigate the rocky shoals of record Budget Deficits, high Unemployment and a Republican resurgence in Congress. The announcement was made in the Prince George's County suburb of Landover, during a presidential visit to a window company that is taking advantage of a new Tax Break for businesses. Obama also announced other changes to his ec...

Obama Turns To Old Clinton Hands
(NewsCore) - President Barack Obama's revamped economic team is made up mostly of Veterans of President Bill Clinton's administration, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The line-up could help the White House navigate a politically divided Washington as it tries to speed up Economic Growth. Veteran policy maker Gene Sperling will direct the White House's National Economic Council (NEC), moving from his post as a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Sperling led the coun...

Obama Throws In with the Clinton Corporatists
Obama’s just dashed any hope that he’d take a more Populist tack the next two years and really confront the Republicans. Instead, by appointing Bill Daley as Chief of Staff and Gene Sperling as director of the National Economic Council, Obama has gone all in with corporatist Clinton retreads from Wall Street. Both Daley and Sperling helped ram NAFTA through. Sperling also polished up the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, which tore down Glass-Steagall and led to the Wall Street crash. But...

Some background on Gene Sperling
by CalculatedRisk on 1/05/2011 10:27:00 PM Gene Sperling is expected to be named chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers on Friday - succeeding Larry Summers. From the NY Times: Obama Turning to Experienced Hands as He Remakes Staff Gene Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, was expected to be named on Friday as the director of the National Economic Council, the top Economic Policy job inside the White House. Mr. Sperling also held the position in the Clinton a...

Sperling It Is
President Obama will name Gene Sperling to be the director of the National Economic Council, replacing Larry Summers. ...

A Big Score for Small Business
Gene Sperling, who the president picked to head his National Economic Council, was the architect behind the Small Business Lending Fund, the administration’s initiative to provide community banks with cheap capital in order to increase lending to small businesses. The president’s host, Thompson Creek Window Co., is a poster child for the Obama Administration’s efforts to help small businesses through Tax Breaks. It used a tax incentive for hiring unemployed workers to expand its workforc

Obama goes pragmatic in casting a new team on the economy
Gene Sperling and William Daley worked with President Clinton in fights over taxes, trade and the Budget with a Republican Congress. President Obama has gone pragmatic in recasting his economic team with several Clinton Administration officials who survived the fiscal battles of the 1990s. Both Gene Sperling and William Daley, named by Obama this week as director of the National Economic Council and White House Chief of Staff, respectively, worked with President Clinton in fights over taxes, t...

Obama to bolster economic team
Gene Sperling is returning to the White House to head the National Economic Council. By CNN Wire and CNNMoney staffJanuary 7, 2011: 8:39 AM ET WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- President Obama will announce key members of his economic team Friday as the administration tries to nudge the U.S. economy into a higher gear, a White House official said. Gene Sperling, currently a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, will be named as the director of National Economic Council, a key policy post that...

The NYT's Clintonite Fuzzy Math
I’m trying to understand the math in today’s NYT story by Michael Shear about Bill Clinton people in the Barack Obama Administration, begged to the announcements of Bill Daley as Chief of Staff and Gene Sperling to head the National Economic Council. Key quotes: The appointments add to the already significant ranks of Clintonites in Mr. Obama’s administration. Still, as some of Mr. Obama’s longtime advisers leave the White House, his decision to revamp his staff by tappi...

Obama to visit manufacturing plant
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- President Obama visits a Manufacturing plant in Landover, Md., Friday, touring the facility and making personnel announcements, the White House said. Obama also will remark on the latest national monthly employment report, the daily agenda indicated. It is widely expected that Obama will name Gene Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as the director of the National Economic Council. Sperling, who held the post during President Bill Clinton's a...

Tax Reform Calls Multiply
Bloomberg's Ryan Donmoyer and Rich Miller report this morning that no decisions have been made yet whether President Obama will back Tax Reform. They report Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will meet January 14th with corporate CFOs to continue the discussion. Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters, "The country is ripe for Tax Reform...our tax system is broken and needs to be fixed." He said it would be one of his first priorities. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConne...

The surplus guy
Matt Miller did a piece on Gene Sperling, Larry Summers' replacement as director of the National Economic Council, back in 1999 when Sperling was working for Bill Clinton.  It's been recommended as still the most "highly accurate and most persuasive portrait of Sperling" available.  Some excerpts and a link: Known to colleagues, as former White House Press Secretary Michael McCurry puts it, as the embodiment of "the pure, idealistic, best side of Bill Clinton...

Too Many Crooks Unchecked
Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary, is on his way out—either being pushed out or jumping ship—as noted by Toby Harnden, writing for The Daily Telegraph. Citing The Child Emperor’s own words, it was “not an entirely voluntary departure”. According to Harnden, CNN’s John King is reporting that “Fibbs” had aspirations of becoming a presidential counselor. Not so fast. William Daley, the newly appointed Chief of Staff, slammed on the brakes for ...

Aide named as US unemployment falls
President Barack Obama has named Clinton-era Veteran Gene Sperling as the new director of his National Economic Council, saying he has a record of helping turn US Budget Deficits into surpluses. Mr Obama also welcomed the decline in the US jobless rate in December from 9.8 per cent to 9.4 per cent but said more needs done to boost growth. ...

Unemployment rate falls to 9.4%; employers add 103,000 jobs
The year 2010 ended on a disappointing note, as The Economy added just 103,000 jobs in December, suggesting that economic deliverance will not arrive with a great pop in employment. Signs still point to a long slog of a recovery, with the Unemployment Rate likely to remain above 8 percent -- it sits at 9.4 percent after Friday's report -- at least through the rest of the president's four-year term. President Barack Obama is not unaware of the political dangers posed by high Unemployment. On Fr...

Afternoon Fix: Obama taps Gene Sperling to lead National Economic Council; Kent Conrad airs first radio ad
The best of the best of state-based political blogs -- as of April 2009. President Obama taps Gene Sperling to head up the National Economic Council; Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) to air his first radio ad; and polling shows Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) could have a tough race ahead. * President Obama has named Gene Sperling director of the National Economic Council. At a Friday Press Conference, Obama called Sperling "a public servant who has devoted his life to making this economy work and makin...

Washington Extra Its my party
“Now, we know these numbers can bounce around from month to month. But the trend is clear,” President Barack Obama said. “We saw 12 straight months of Private Sector job growth.  That’s the first time that’s been true since 2006.” Gene Sperling has something to party about, he’s just got his old job back. Obama announced additions to his White House economic team and named Sperling as director of the National Economic Council (a post he held in Pres...

How to Understand Gene Sperling
Over the years, I've had various contacts with Gene Sperling, who was introduced by President Obama today as the new director of the National Economic Council, replacing Larry Summers. I don't know him well. But the sudden "Controversy" surrounding Sperling--the charge that he is in thrall to Wall Street because Goldman Sachs paid him to run an anti-poverty program--surprised me, since anyone who knows him at all, or has been spun by him, or has read his book or magazine writing, would pretty q...

Reich: Why Won't Obama Tell The Real Story Instead Of Legitimizing The Republican Narrative On Deficits?
I read the other day that Robert Reich reacted favorably to Obama's appointment of Gene Sperling as his top economic advisor, and wondered if there was more to it. I'm happy to see that the Times has actually interviewed him: BERKELEY, Calif. — So how would he grade President Obama’s economic policies, and the new team put in place this week? Though Robert B. Reich, the former labor secretary, endorsed Mr. Obama and has traveled to the White House to provide economic counsel, he offe...

McConnell: Daley pick a 'hopeful sign'
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell called it a “hopeful sign” that there will soon be someone at the White House who knows how to run more than a “Lemonade Stand,” hailing President Barack Obama’s pick for his new top aide, William Daley. Obama announced Thursday that he would appoint a fellow Chicagoan, former banking executive and Commerce Secretary William Daley, to be his new Chief of Staff. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 On the Hill, McConne...

McConnell hopeful on tax reform
In the latest sign of Bipartisan support for Tax Reform, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, signaled Thursday that he hoped the tax code could be revamped this year. The Kentucky Republican called the corporate Tax Rate outrageous and said that President Obama appeared to be open to making changes to that rate. “Beyond that, I think we all know the tax code is a disaster, and we -- any effort to simplify the tax code, to get the rates down, to make it more fair, I think we'd be open ...

Lloyd Blankfeins Secret Facebook Feed
According to a Bloomberg report, despite their firm's recent investment in Facebook, many Goldman Sachs employees aren't familiar with the workings of the social-networking site, since it was until recently banned in the office for Productivity reasons (and most Goldman employees are, naturally, so focused on minting money they never managed to create profiles on their own time). Which is why, the news service explains, an executive recently held a special training session to walk them "through ...

Obama to Visit Door-and-Window Factory in Md. on Friday
Friday, January 07, 2011 By Staff, Associated Press Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama will visit a factory in suburban Washington on Friday morning. The president will tour Thompson Creek Manufacturing, which builds energy efficient replacement windows and doors, as well as siding and gutters at its family owned and operated facility in Landover, Md. Afterward, Obama will comment on the Labor Department's monthly employment report and announce the latest personnel changes in his econ...

Sperling Gets Top Economic Post
President Obama today will name Gene Sperling as head of the White House National Economic Council as he reshuffles his leadership team, the Detroit News reports. Other announcements: Jason Furman will be Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Katharine Abraham will join the Council of Economic Advisers and Heather Higginbottom will be Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. ...

My secret, definitive (and unpublished) profile of Gene Sperling!
Will health-care reform really save the government money? My secret, definitive (and unpublished) profile of Gene Sperling! In the summer and fall of 1999, while a senior editor at The New Republic, I worked on a profile of Gene Sperling, then the chairman of the National Economic Council, a position to which President Obama is appointing him again. I'd known, worked with and closely observed Gene during my stint as a senior adviser at the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1995, thoug...