Dems in Disarray: Harold Ford Hits Out at Obama

In a new Fortune piece, former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., Chairman of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, hits out at President Obama saying he needs to make some “halftime adjustments” including “order[ing] his department heads and agency chiefs to declare a moratorium on new regulations until further notice.”

The critique is timely, given news that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski is engaged in a less-than-stealthy, renewed effort to ram through net neutrality regulations in advance of a Republican takeover of the House that will see one of several opponents of net neutrality assume chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), a leading contender for the job, recently wrote in a policy memo that “The FCC’s regulatory compass is broken as it continues in its unrelenting pursuit to impose so-called network neutrality regulations, regardless of whether the agency has the legal authority for such a blind power grab.”

In addition, Ford’s urging of a regulatory moratorium will no doubt hearten Gulf state residents concerned about an ongoing, de facto “permitorium” preventing the resumption of drilling operations in the region in the wake of the BP disaster, and subsequent drilling moratorium, earlier this year.

Ford notes in the piece that “The U.S. needs a strong oil and gas industry to secure our future, and our own companies are leading the world in the development of new technologies to safely recover America’s own resources. These companies are also investing in the fuels of tomorrow. A case in point is Exxon Mobil’s (XOM) work with Synthetic Genomics to develop fuels from algae.”

In the piece, Ford also urges Obama to make permanent the Bush tax cuts for middle-class Americans, and those affecting capital gains and dividend income; he also argues for cutting the corporate tax rate by half.

The advice comes as many conservative and moderate Democrats have been publicly and privately decrying the decision to keep Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership team that led House Democratic candidates to a bloody defeat in November in place. Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, have been arguing that Democrats lost because they did not govern liberally enough, and that Obama needs to veer left in order to improve his chances of re-election.

All indications as yet are that Obama does not intend to pursue a Clinton-esque approach in the wake of November election losses, despite consistent charges from industry and non-profit groups that regulation on his watch has gotten out of hand and threatens to undercut chief administration objectives, ranging from job creation to promotion of green energy. Setting aside net neutrality and drilling permitting issues, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tailoring Rule has recently been criticized for threatening the biomass industry, traditionally considered a producer of environmentally-friendly energy, and one active in states won by Obama in the Pacific Northwest and New England.

As Ford notes, in order “to jump-start economic growth and business investment, stimulate job creation, and get wages up for ordinary Americans… The most important thing our leader can do is to push the reset button with business.”