2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumTop Hillary Clinton advisors, fundraisers lobbied against Obamacare
Hillary Clinton is campaigning as a guardian of President Barack Obamas progressive policy accomplishments. In recent weeks, she has called the Affordable Care Act one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of our country, and promised that she is going to defend Dodd-Frank and defend President Obama for taking on Wall Street.
Meanwhile, however, Clintons campaign has been relying on a team of strategists and fundraisers, many of whom spent much of the last seven years as consultants or lobbyists for business interests working to obstruct Obamas agenda in those two areas.
Consultants associated with the Dewey Square Group, a lobbying firm that has been retained by business interests to defeat a variety of progressive reforms, are playing a major role in the Clinton campaign. Charles Baker III, the co-founder of Dewey, is a senior strategist and the campaigns chief administrative officer. Michael Whouley, another Dewey co-founder, played an early role in advising Clintons plan for the current campaign by convening some of the very first strategy sessions. Senior Dewey officials Jill Alper and Minyon Moore are also close advisers and fundraisers for Clinton, while at least four other Clinton officials have worked at Dewey within the last four years. In addition, disclosures show that Clintons Super PACs Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record have also paid Dewey Square Group for a variety of services in this election.
Dewey,for instance, worked on behalf of the health insurance industry during the health reform debate, specifically to block the changes to Medicare Advantage that were critical for financing the Affordable Care Act. Medicare Advantage, which allows Medicare beneficiaries to use plans administered by private insurers, had long served as a cash cow for the health insurance industry. By one estimate, insurance companies over-billed the government by nearly $70 billion in improper payments over just a five year period. Dewey, which had been tapped to by health insurers to block cuts from the program starting in 2007, continued during the Obama era to lobby to protect Medicare Advantage, even as such reforms became a major part of how Democrats and the Obama administration sought to finance the Affordable Care Act. (snip)
Oh really Hillary ?
Read the full article : https://theintercept.com/2016/02/08/hrc-inner-circle-lobbyists/
SamKnause
(13,107 posts)You can deny it, but that won't make it so.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)She may help women along the way but never at the expense of the Wealthy 1%. She is part of the culture that embraces the capitalistic goal of accumulating wealth in the 1% or 0.1%.
Goldman-Sachs and the billionaires don't give her enormous wealth because they believe she will will end poverty at their expense.
elleng
(130,914 posts)bkkyosemite
(5,792 posts)directly involved in her campaign. Unless she is a hypocrite...just saying.
elleng
(130,914 posts)She has hired them, I assume, for their approaches and successes in getting attention, not for their past clients' policies.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)This is not some empty attack, this is the detailed info of who her campaign is, what kind of things they get done, and for who.
Last month, Benenson convened a conference call with reporters to deride Bernie Sanders for airing an ad that criticized Wall Street firms and the politicians who accept their donations, according to a report from International Business Times. As IBTimes reported, Benenson has also represented JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, among other corporate clients.
Steve Elmendorf, a campaign adviser and fundraiser who has collected $30,505 for Clinton, was retained by Goldman Sachs as one of the banks primary lobbyists working to weaken the Dodd-Frank bill. Records show that after the bill was signed into law, Elmendorf continued to work on behalf of a number of Wall Street clients to ensure the implementation was favorable to financial industry interests. Elmendorf was tapped by Citigroup, for example, to help the House of Representatives pass the Swap Jurisdiction Clarity Act, a bill strongly supported by Republican leadership in Congress to allow banks to avoid financial regulations by moving some operations overseas a change that experts say could lead to another financial meltdown.