Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
In the administrations of the last three Democratic presidents, the Treasury Department and the making of economic policy were handed over to Wall Streeters.
According to Kevin Sheekey, who is Michael Bloomberg’s campaign manager, his gazillionaire boss is considering naming his vice-presidential pick even as the primaries continue to unfold—presumably, to give some indication as to what a Bloomberg administration would look like.
But vice-presidential picks, be they real or hypothetical, usually don’t portend very much about how an administration will shape up. A better guide would be a heads-up on some key cabinet positions, or, more likely, the kind of talent pools the candidates would be looking to were they to win the White House.
Right now, for instance, the divide between the Democrats’ left candidates (Sanders and Warren), the more centrist (Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar), and the Republican (Bloomberg) is greatest on economic policy. In the administrations of the last three Democratic presidents, the Treasury Department and the making of economic policy were handed over to Wall Streeters or their ilk: Michael Blumenthal under Jimmy Carter, Robert Rubin under Bill Clinton, Timothy Geithner under Barack Obama. They played a key role in the deregulation of finance, in the trade deals that gutted American industry, and in the overall downsizing of the American middle class.
Should Sanders or Warren get the nomination, we can be confident that no such figures, and no such policies, would befoul their administrations. But what of the other candidates? If they want anyone to take seriously their condemnations of economic inequality, they need to make clear that they won’t pick more Wall Street Democrats to shape the policies and perspectives of their presidencies. Indeed, it would be prudent for progressives to demand that of them—and to demand that now.
