Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has hired a top Obama administration economic adviser, further linking her to the fiscal policies of the past eight years.
CNBC reported Monday:
Jacob Leibenluft, deputy director of the National Economic Council, will become a senior policy adviser as Clinton prepares to fill out her economic agenda for the general election…
…Leibenluft has served on Obama’s economic team from the beginning of the president’s first term. Among his areas of focus have been policies on job training, apprenticeships and the minimum wage.
Leibenluft has defended the administration’s failed Keynesian stimulus, which sought to improve the moribund economy through increased federal government spending.
Republican Donald Trump, meanwhile, is rolling out a Third Way economic plan that aims to increase federal revenues through trade and de-regulation in order to both cut taxes and preserve Social Security and Medicare.
The Obama administration has vastly increased the federal debt while also launching sustained attacks on Medicare programs. The Republican Establishment as embodied by Speaker Paul Ryan aims to cut and transform Social Security while doing nothing to meaningfully increase revenues to offset their proposed cuts.