Obama Hires A Wal-Mart Democrat

Politico reports:

Way back in the primary, Wal-Mart was a bogeyman. Barack Obama, you may hazily recall, even attacked Hillary Clinton for sitting on its board.

So there's quite a lot of grumbling in labor circles today about his bringing on Jason Furman as his chief economic policy advisor, because Furman wrote a key, 2005 defense (.pdf) of Wal-Mart from the left, titled, unironically, "Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story."

The piece makes two arguments. The first is that Wal-Mart lowers prices, so low-income people (and others) can buy more. The second is that Wal-Mart's low-wage jobs are consistent with the Clintonite philosophy of making work pay, and that the right fix is to have government subsidize the low-wage workers' salaries and help provide them healthcare. He denies that Wal-Mart lowers local wages.

We shall see how long Mr.Furman lasts.Chicago Democrats are for high prices and restraining trade so unions can have artificially high wages off of non-union workers.