On National Security and the Economy, Obama is not on the Far Left

National security and the economy (in that order) are easily the two issues that concern me the most. Because Barack Obama has been "palling around with" far left extremists all of his life and because his short voting record in the Senate indicated that he was one of the most liberal members of that august body, I had every expectation that he'd govern from the far left (because, I assumed, that's who he is). It seemed like sound reasoning to me, and that's why I didn't vote for the man. However, my reasoning seems to have been very wrong. On national security, Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense), and retired Marine general James Jones (National security Advisor) are leading contenders for Obama's cabinet. If you set aside Hillary's hard-left veer into anti-war fanaticism during the primary campaign, all three of these people are serious about and know the details about Iraq (including the fact that al Qaeda was the major force in creating sectarian violence that once spiraled out of control). Thus, although there was no reason to believe that Obama was anything other than a Code Pink anti-war extremist when he was running for President, it now seems clear that what will change is tone, not substance (if, that is, these people actually are appointed). And that's fine by me.

On the economy, Obama promised to raise taxes on the wealthy, raise taxes on corporations, and raise the capital gains tax rate, all while erecting barriers to free trade. My question was this: are these anti-growth measures even remotely sensible during a time when we are heading into a global recession? Nobody else seemed to care about this, and Obama was elected as president. But here again, Obama does not seem to be behaving at all like his left wing past led me to believe he would behave. First, we have this:

Obama may delay tax-cut rollback for wealthy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama may consider delaying a campaign promise - to roll back tax cuts on high-income Americans - as part of his economic recovery strategy, two aides said on Sunday.

Now you tell me! I completely understand (but do not necessarily agree with) the desire to raise taxes on the wealthy and on capital gains for fairness purposes (e.g., as a means of reducing income inequality). What I do not understand is mindlessly forging ahead with that anti-growth plan as the world economy is plunging into a recession. However, now that we've elected Obama, he is suddenly changing his tune and being a lot more rational about this issue. Based on his past record, I never would have guessed this about the man. Why would I?

With regard to his economic team, well, that's looking pretty good, too, at least on the issue of free trade. Here is a Wikipedia entry about the new director of the White House National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers:

Summers is an ardent proponent of free trade and globalization, and frequently takes positions on a number of politically-charged subjects. This, along with his direct style of management, made him controversial as President of Harvard.

An ardent proponent of free trade? Now you tell me! And here is a little about the new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner:

At the same time, Mr. Geithner’s current links in the bailout to the two top economic appointees of outgoing President George W. Bush are offset by his close connections to the centrist Democratic policies of former President Bill Clinton and his best-known Treasury secretary, former Wall Street executive Robert E. Rubin. Mr. Geithner served under Mr. Rubin and Mr. Summers at Treasury in the 1990s, and rose to be undersecretary for international affairs.

Rubin protégés in fact are likely to dominate the Obama economic team, to the certain dismay of some Democratic Party liberals and union leaders who disparage the Rubin faction’s devotion to the goals of balanced budgets and free trade.

There is nothing in any of these appointments that seems to resemble Obama's past. I've always been a big believer in the notion that past behavior, not mere words, predicts future behavior. That why I did not see any of this coming in an Obama administration (and it's why I did not vote for him). I think it is fair to say at this point that although one would never have predicted it based on his past behavior, Obama is definitely not going to be the far left extremist I thought that he would be on either national security or the economy.

UPDATE: Christina Romer has been picked by Barack Obama to head his Council of Economic Advisors. Here is a pdf of a research paper she wrote with her husband looking at the effects of tax increases on economic growth. A few quotes:

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the level of taxation on economic activity...The resulting estimates indicate that tax increases are highly contractionary. The effects are strongly significant, highly robust, and much larger than those obtained using broader measures of tax changes. The large effect stems in considerable part from a powerful negative effect of tax increases on investment. We also find that legislated tax increases designed to reduce a persistent budget deficit appear to have much smaller output costs than other tax increases.

Just not what I would have expected from Obama...