Soros-Funded Democratic Idea Factory Becomes Obama Policy Font
Three blocks from the White House, on the 10th floor of a sleek glass building, young workers pound at computers, with giant flat-screen TVs overhead. It has the look and feel of a high-tech startup.
In many ways it is. The product is ideas.
Thanks in part to funding from benefactors such as billionaire George Soros, the Center for American Progress has become in just five years an intellectual wellspring for Democratic policy proposals, including many that are shaping the agenda of the new Obama administration.
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CAP's president and founder, John Podesta, 59, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is one of three people running the transition team for president-elect Barack Obama, 47. A squadron of CAP experts is working with them.
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In addition to Podesta, at least 10 other CAP experts are advising the incoming administration, including Melody Barnes, the center's executive vice president for policy who co-chairs the agency-review working group and Cassandra Butts, the senior vice president for domestic policy, who is now a senior transition staffer.
Some of the group's recommendations already have been adopted by the president-elect:
1. withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
2.universal health coverage
3.create "green jobs'' linked to alleviating global climate change
4.creation of a ``National Energy Council'' headed by an official with the stature of the national security adviser
5.creation of a White House ``office of social entrepreneurship'' to spur new ideas for addressing social problems.
RECAP:
1.Retreat in Iraq
2.Socialized health care
3.Vitalize global warming hoax to reward friends
4.Destroy domestic coal and oil industries in America now to revitalize later for political advantage
5.In an entrepreneurial style, identify new social "problems" to leverage power and later campaign victories
But will the empty trains run on time?
