Obama Fiscal Team Reunites Rubin Protégés

Barack Obama’s incoming administration is stocked with acolytes of Bill Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, reports the New York Times. But even Rubin and his protégés are no longer quite as enamored as they once were of so-called Rubinomics—deregulation, balanced budgets, and free trade. Facing economic crisis, Rubinistas like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner—and Rubin himself—are now sounding more like their liberal critics.

Of Larry Summers, says Jared Bernstein, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, “I told him, ‘Boy, Larry, your views on trade, on income inequality, on stimulus spending, they’re approaching ours at EPI.’” Obama himself has sworn to re-regulate Wall Street, and incoming Treasury Secretary Geithner has sought to do so as well.