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So That Happened - Elizabeth Warren Made Washington Angry Again
Elizabeth Warren Made Washington Angry Again
It's been a tough week for Beltway insiders.
Posted: 10/02/2015 12:03 PM EDT | Edited: 10/02/2015 12:35 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The American political elite have never really been riled up over Elizabeth Warren's policy positions. They're just frightened by the culture war she's waging against the soft corruption of Beltway careerism.
Sure, Warren is tough on Wall Street. But such left-wing radicals as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill support reinstating Glass-Steagall and its restrictions on risky securities trading. On most issues outside economic policy, Warren is a conventional Democrat. She doesn't talk about foreign policy much, and when she does, she gives progressives little to cheer.
But when she takes on the revolving door between Washington policymaking and corporate cash-outs, tempers flare all over the city.
Her campaign against Wall Street tax-inversion guru Antonio Weiss? "Political grandstanding" and "fratricide" from a know-nothing eager for a "scapegoat," they say. Her letter highlighting corporate conflicts of interest in the research of (now former) Brookings Institution scholar Robert Litan? That's "bullying" and "McCarthyism," a "crusade" born of a "power rush," they claim.
***********************
Podcast, listen here~
https://soundcloud.com/so-that-happened-1/elizabeth-warren-vs-thistown-trump-has-a-tax-plan-and-congress-vents-near-cecile-richards
***********************
....big snip....
The Beltway outrage directed at Warren for sending the letter, of course, has nothing to do with the quality of Litan's research or his ability to publish it. The First Amendment has not been repealed. Nothing prevents Litan from doing all the industry-funded research he wants and letting the public evaluate its merits.
What Litan can no longer do, however, is capitalize on Brookings' centrist, scholarly reputation when performing favors for flush corporate clients. This is a scary thing in the nation's capital, where this sort of thing happens all the time. Corporate interests pay for a lot of economic studies that end up being used as lobbying cudgels.
People in Washington are accustomed to cashing in on their reputations and those of prestigious institutions.
....big snip....
One could be forgiven for concluding that work of this caliber had been corrupted by the corporate interests who paid for it. Indeed, a blog post from Brookings fellow Jane Dokkow titled "Caveat Emptor: Watch where research on the fiduciary rule comes from" is one long, implicit dig at Litan's study. (Warren cited the post in her letter to Brookings.) Dokkow says low-income savers can already get good, unbiased and unconflicted investment advice from both people and software, and that these sources won't dry up with the DOL rule. At a Brookings forum this week, Harvard behavior economist David Laibson and MIT economist Antoinette Schoar also backed the DOL rule.
These are not wild visions of egalitarian utopia or issues of intellectual freedom or thought-policing.
In a way, Warren's critics are selling themselves short by accusing her of waging an ultraliberal witch hunt.
Cheating your investment clients and peddling corrupt research aren't conservative values -- they're Washington values.
The "So, That Happened" podcast is produced and edited by Adriana Usero and Peter James Callahan, and engineered by Brad Shannon, with assistance from Christine Conetta. To listen to the podcast later, download it on iTunes, where you can rate, review and subscribe to the show.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-corruption_560e7ef1e4b0768127019278
It's been a tough week for Beltway insiders.
Posted: 10/02/2015 12:03 PM EDT | Edited: 10/02/2015 12:35 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The American political elite have never really been riled up over Elizabeth Warren's policy positions. They're just frightened by the culture war she's waging against the soft corruption of Beltway careerism.
Sure, Warren is tough on Wall Street. But such left-wing radicals as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill support reinstating Glass-Steagall and its restrictions on risky securities trading. On most issues outside economic policy, Warren is a conventional Democrat. She doesn't talk about foreign policy much, and when she does, she gives progressives little to cheer.
But when she takes on the revolving door between Washington policymaking and corporate cash-outs, tempers flare all over the city.
Her campaign against Wall Street tax-inversion guru Antonio Weiss? "Political grandstanding" and "fratricide" from a know-nothing eager for a "scapegoat," they say. Her letter highlighting corporate conflicts of interest in the research of (now former) Brookings Institution scholar Robert Litan? That's "bullying" and "McCarthyism," a "crusade" born of a "power rush," they claim.
***********************
Podcast, listen here~
https://soundcloud.com/so-that-happened-1/elizabeth-warren-vs-thistown-trump-has-a-tax-plan-and-congress-vents-near-cecile-richards
***********************
....big snip....
The Beltway outrage directed at Warren for sending the letter, of course, has nothing to do with the quality of Litan's research or his ability to publish it. The First Amendment has not been repealed. Nothing prevents Litan from doing all the industry-funded research he wants and letting the public evaluate its merits.
What Litan can no longer do, however, is capitalize on Brookings' centrist, scholarly reputation when performing favors for flush corporate clients. This is a scary thing in the nation's capital, where this sort of thing happens all the time. Corporate interests pay for a lot of economic studies that end up being used as lobbying cudgels.
People in Washington are accustomed to cashing in on their reputations and those of prestigious institutions.
....big snip....
One could be forgiven for concluding that work of this caliber had been corrupted by the corporate interests who paid for it. Indeed, a blog post from Brookings fellow Jane Dokkow titled "Caveat Emptor: Watch where research on the fiduciary rule comes from" is one long, implicit dig at Litan's study. (Warren cited the post in her letter to Brookings.) Dokkow says low-income savers can already get good, unbiased and unconflicted investment advice from both people and software, and that these sources won't dry up with the DOL rule. At a Brookings forum this week, Harvard behavior economist David Laibson and MIT economist Antoinette Schoar also backed the DOL rule.
These are not wild visions of egalitarian utopia or issues of intellectual freedom or thought-policing.
In a way, Warren's critics are selling themselves short by accusing her of waging an ultraliberal witch hunt.
Cheating your investment clients and peddling corrupt research aren't conservative values -- they're Washington values.
The "So, That Happened" podcast is produced and edited by Adriana Usero and Peter James Callahan, and engineered by Brad Shannon, with assistance from Christine Conetta. To listen to the podcast later, download it on iTunes, where you can rate, review and subscribe to the show.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-corruption_560e7ef1e4b0768127019278
(xposted in Video & Multimedia forum)