Counterpoint: Obama "Absolutely Not" Anti-Capitalist

Asked to retort to Charles Ortel's earlier claim Obama is the "most anti-market" President in U.S. history, Cavanagh cites the following:

• The Company He Keeps: Citing Tim Geither and Larry Summers, specifically, Cavanagh says Obama's cabinet "is as sympathetic to business as any in the past 25 years." Furthermore, he notes Wall Street firms were big contributors to Obama's campaign. Indeed, the Obama administration has only extended and expanded President Bush's bailout policies for banks, rather than deviated from them.
• Only the Rich are Wealthy: Obama can raise the top marginal tax rate and even raise taxes for the rest of us "and still be one of the most market-friendly Presidents of all time," Cavanagh says. Across the board, tax rates are "historically low" and low by global standards, he says, noting the top rate was 91% as recently as during the Eisenhower presidency. After 30 years of cuts, Cavanagh says tax policy is "out of synch with what the country needs and created levels of inequality most Americans would admit are corrosive to our Democracy."
• Hey Big Spender: "Even the biggest government program of the Obama administration is one that has been quite sympathetic to the private sector," Cavanagh says, referring to the $787 billion stimulus plan. Unlike FDR's alphabet soup of new government agencies, much of Obama's stimulus is either going directly to the private sector or to state and local government who then end up hiring private contractors, he says.
• Market-based Socialism: Even Obama's highly criticized cap-and-trade proposal is based on a "market framework" of carbon credits, which can be traded, Cavanagh says. "If [Obama] were really a Socialist or European Social Democrat, he'd say: ‘OK we're going to cut emissions by 20% by 2020 and we're going to do this by we the government are going to say you the petroleum sector must cut by this much.' He's not doing this. He is using market mechanisms."
• Just a Sliver: Health-care is the area where Obama has faced the most criticism for being a "socialist," but by the President's own admission the public option is "going to be one piece of the health-care system," Cavanagh notes. "He's not saying ‘we want government run, government owned healthcare.' And again, he's doing it in a market framework. He's saying I think the government can do it more efficiently and cheaper."

Of course, all this is subject to debate - certainly the idea the U.S. government can more efficiently run healthcare, or anything else for that matter. And, please, let us know what you think via the comments section.

But it does speak how far to the right of center we've come that Obama is being called a socialist when even Ortel agrees America has become a "corporatocracy."