Furman and Social Security
The LA Times reports:
Labor union officials and some liberal activists were seething Tuesday over Barack Obama's choice of centrist economist Jason Furman as the top economic advisor for the campaign. The critics say Furman, who was appointed to the post Monday, has overstated the potential benefits of globalization, Social Security private accounts and the low prices offered by Wal-Mart -- considered a corporate pariah by the labor movement.
Furman has definitely taken stances on Wal-Mart and trade policy that are at odds with what "labor union officials and some liberal activists" tend to want to hear (I do, too). But what I remember from the Social Security fight was that there were a number of wonks who anti-privatization journalists and activists were leaning heavily on to beat back the tide of pressure from the White House and the press. I require Furman as having been one of the very most effective such wonks. Here's one example of many. I'm not sure exactly what the LA Times is referring to, but anyone who thinks Furman was or is a supporter of Bush's privatization plan is badly mistaken.
John McCain, on the other hand, is a person like that and yet somehow I haven't seen any press coverage of his plan to destroy America's largest and most popular domestic program.