Inserted from <The Nation<\/a>> The Obama Presidency suffers from a shortage of progressive advisers, especially in the area of finance. As a result he cannot hear the voice of the people who worked tirelessly to realize his dream of change. Instead, he gets the views of people like this. The revolving door spins both ways in Washington. Some politicians […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"gene-sperling\"](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202009\/ObamaNeedsBetterAdvisers_2865\/genesperling.jpg\" "\\"gene-sperling\\"")
<\/a> The revolving door spins both ways in Washington. Some politicians collect their reward after they leave office, like former Representative Dick Gephardt, who is now raking in the big bucks as a corporate lobbyist. Others reverse the transaction and get their money upfront–before they become “public servants.” Gene Sperling got his cash in advance. <\/span>
This year Sperling is among the small circle of intimate staffers advising Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on financial bailouts and other matters. Last year in private life, Sperling was paid $887,727 by Goldman Sachs as a consultant. That is peanuts compared to the big hitters at Goldman Sachs. But it’s pretty pricey for a Washington policy wonk. Put it with the $158,000 Sperling earned making speeches to financial companies and some other lucrative chores and Gene looks like a million-dollar thinker. <\/span>
Sperling was a White House acolyte of Robert Rubin during the Clinton years and among the many Clintonistas-in-waiting who have found a place in the Obama administration. Let us stipulate that he is earnest and intelligent, sincerely devoted to good government. But his money connections reflect the velvet sleaze that lubricates the Washington system. His r\u00e9sum\u00e9 more or less assures that Citizen Sperling will not look at the outrageous fortunes of Wall Street players quite the same way lowercase citizens might. His experience and training allow him to appreciate the complexities of policy-making, while ordinary Americans may focus on the cruder questions of right and wrong<\/strong>. <\/span>
The particulars of Sperling’s good fortune were highlighted by Bloomberg News in an article titled, “<\/span>Geithner Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds<\/a>.” Kudos to reporter Robert Schmidt for assembling the facts. Sperling, we learn, actually earned $2.2 million in the thirteen months before he re-entered government. That includes $480,051 he was paid as a director of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, plus $250,000 for his quarterly briefings to two hedge funds, plus the speaking gigs (including an appearance before the Stanford Group in Houston subsequently charged with running a Ponzi scheme). Meantime, his day job at the Council on Foreign Relations paid $116,653. A busy, busy wonk… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, I\u2019m not passing judgment on Sperling\u2019s character. For all I know he\u2019s an honest, hard-working man, The problem, as I see it, is that he\u2019s one of too many business as usual<\/em> men and women advising the President. We didn\u2019t work or vote for business as usual<\/em>. We worked and voted for change we can believe in<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"