Three Questions for Barack Obama You Won't Hear at the Debates

With Senator Barack Obama presumably our next President, I'd like to learn a bit more about what he plans to do, given the impact of the credit crisis.

Here are three questions I'd ask in the improbable event I get asked to moderate a Presidential debate.

Q1: Senator Obama, given that you're now embracing the U.K.plan from Prime Minister Gordon Brown to directly inject cash into major banks, do you also agree to that plan's requirements that top executives of the banks be let go since they were responsible for the mess? That means your top economic advisor, Robert Rubin, would be canned from Citibank; are you OK with Rubin being fired?

Q2: When the credit crisis broke, you trotted out a rogue's gallery of seven economic advisors (all Clinton retreads) lead by Robert Rubin, former Goldman Sachs COO, Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, and his Undersecretary Larry Summers. Rubin and Summers were responsible for de-regulating Wall Street investment firms. When government economists said that Wall St. derivatives were dangerous and needed oversight, Rubin isolated them and reportedly drove a key critic out of the government. According to the New York Times, your advisors Rubin and Summers were the officials instrumental in killing regulation of derivatives.

Rubin was succeeded by Henry Paulson, yet another Goldman Sachs CXO, who carried Rubin's de-regulations, for the benefit of Goldman Sachs, to new levels contributing to the crash. Both made hundreds of millions at Goldman Sachs. The U.S. recovery plan is run by another Goldman Sachs executive, Neel Kashkari.

Some skeptics have said the Treasury department, under both Democrats and Republicans, has been run by Goldman Sachs, for Goldman Sachs.

Question: Are you willing to pledge now that whomever you name as Treasury Secretary will never have been employed by Goldman Sachs, will not be a beneficial holder of shares of Goldman Sachs stock, and will sign an agreement to not work for Goldman Sachs after leaving the treasury? (If you make this pledge will it be more meaningful than your pledge to use government funding for your campaign?)

Q3: An independent budget watchdog estimated your administration's plans would run up a $3.5-to-$4.8 Trillion budget deficit; that estimate was made before you announced several tax loopholes for the wealthy, several more spending plans, and the credit crisis hit. PBS' Jim Lehrer, in the debate he moderated, asked you twice what spending you would need to cut back and both times you replied with plans for additional spending. So, again, what spending cuts will you make, or failing that how much damage will it do to our economy for your administration to borrow trillions more from other countries?

Somehow, I don't expect we'll hear any answers.

Photo: Getty.

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