Free Republic

President Joe Biden referred to former President Trump as an “existential threat” during a fundraiser in New York City on Wednesday, as anti-Israel protesters blocked Fifth Avenue outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “There is one existential threat: it’s Donald Trump,” Biden told business leaders during his first stop of the day at the Upper West Side home of Larry Linden, the former managing partner of Goldman Sachs. “He’ll try to undo everything we’ve done… We can’t let that happen,” Biden said. “There is only one existential threat we face in the world: and that’s the environment.” The president had...

Steven Rattner, the head of former President Obama’s auto industry task force, called President Biden’s visit to Michigan and a United Auto Workers (UAW) picket line “outrageous” in a Wednesday interview. “For him to be going on a picket line is outrageous,” said Rattner, a former journalist who later worked in private equity, said in an interview with NBC News. “There’s no precedent for it. The tradition of the president is to stay neutral in these things.”

Investor and economic analyst Steven Rattner recently said he found the deal to be highly unusual..."Jared Kushner spent much of his White House tenure cozying up to MBS & Saudi Arabia...Six months after leaving Washington, his private equity firm landed $2 billion in investments from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund." [Rattner worked for Obama and manages former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's private wealth]

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro reminded MSNBC Morning Joe’s Economic Analyst Steve Rattner how the American tax system works, and it was glorious. Rattner took to Twitter to prop up President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pork-laced stimulus package. Rattner tweeted, “The top 20% of households reaped 65% of benefit from Trump’s tax cuts. The bottom 20% got 1%.” Pivoting off, Rattner fawned how Biden’s “American Rescue Plan gives aid to those who actually need it.” He even included a chart to illustrate his point. Not so fast. Shapiro had another chart, which completely blew up Rattner’s narrative.

The federal investigation into allegations of pay to play in one state agency may be over, but that doesn’t mean Gov. Bill Richardson is in the clear, a top New Mexico political analyst said today.In an interview with NMI, Albuquerque pollster and analyst Brian Sanderoff pointed out that federal and state investigators are still looking into allegations in the investment scandal that began in New York and has since spread to New Mexico and other states. That case, which is separate from the probe that has ended, involves some prominent Richardson friends and donors.The probe that we learned today...

Dr. Robert Jeffress: "I predict the House flipping will give President Donald Trump a larger re-election majority win in 2020. Watch & share my interview from @LouDobbs Tonight on @FoxBusiness."

Presidential candidate Donald Trump is now taking on one-time Obama "car czar" Steve Rattner.On Monday, Trump fired off a tweet telling Rattner: "I think you should have gone to prison for what you did, I guess Obama saved you." He ended the tweet telling Rattner to watch: "I will win!" It was unclear what activity Trump was referring to that should have landed Rattner in jail. Trump did not respond to CNNMoney's request for comment. In 2010, Rattner did pay $10 million in fines when he settled with the New York state attorney general for his alleged involvement in a...

President Donald Trump has a low approval rating. He is engaging in bitter Twitter wars and facing metastasizing investigations. But if the election were held today, he’d likely ride to a second term in a huge landslide, according to multiple economic models with strong track records of picking presidential winners and losses. Credit a strong U.S. economy featuring low unemployment, rising wages and low gas prices — along with the historic advantage held by incumbent presidents. While Trump appears to be in a much stronger position than his approval rating and conventional Beltway wisdom might suggest, he also could wind...

The economy invariably ranks among the top issues on the minds of voters in presidential elections. At the moment, it appears to offer President Trump a meaningful tailwind. But how big is that tailwind? Fortunately, economists have worked hard to develop models for predicting election outcomes, and according to one of the best of these, it should be quite large. One of the first — and perhaps still the best — of these models was created by Ray Fair, a professor at Yale. He found that the growth rates of gross domestic product and inflation have been the two most...

teven Rattner, "car czar" and counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration, cites three different modelers in his N.Y. Times commentary, "Trump’s Formidable 2020 Tailwind." The big picture: Trump wins all three modelers. Economists predict that the tailwind is large. Ray Fair, a professor at Yale, "found that the growth rates of gross domestic product and inflation have been the two most important economic predictors — but he also found that incumbency was also an important determinant of presidential election outcomes." "Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, has looked at 12 models, and Mr. Trump wins...

Steven Rattner, "car czar" and counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration, cites three different modelers in his N.Y. Times commentary, "Trump’s Formidable 2020 Tailwind." The big picture: Trump wins all three modelers. Economists predict that the tailwind is large. Ray Fair, a professor at Yale, "found that the growth rates of gross domestic product and inflation have been the two most important economic predictors — but he also found that incumbency was also an important determinant of presidential election outcomes." "Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, has looked at 12 models, and Mr. Trump wins...

Three modelers are predicting President Trump will win reelection in 2020 based on a combination of economic data and incumbent advantages, according to a column in The New York Times. Steven Rattner wrote that Ray Fair of Yale favors Trump to win based on a model that combines incumbency and gross domestic product growth rates. The model predicted Barack Obama’s 2008 popular vote margin within a fraction of a percentage point and got within two-tenths of a point for his 2012 vote share, Rattner, who served as a counselor to the Treasury secretary during the Obama administration, added. The model...

A Better Way to Tax the Rich Raise the capital gains tax and treat investment earnings like ordinary income. Steven Rattner By Steven Rattner Mr. Rattner served as counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration. Jan. 28, 2019 Kudos to our latest political supernova, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for helpfully bringing taxes back into focus, with her call for a new top tax rate of 70 percent on incomes above $10 million a year. That seemingly simple concept makes for a great headline, but it’s not great tax policy. While I’m all for raising taxes on the wealthy (in large...

Steven Rattner, a fundraiser for Democrat Hillary Clinton and someone who was fined by the SEC, has a column criticizing Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina in The New York Times titled "Carly Fiorina Really Was That Bad." ... "Not mentioned by the Times is the fact Rattner was once President Obama‘s 'Car Czar' back during the Cash-for-Clunkers days. He’s also a major fundraiser for (drumroll…) Hillary Clinton." Rattner also paid $10 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010 for alleged involvement in a New York State pension fund scandal. ... What’s next, Grey Lady? Can we...

The New York Times is declaring that disgraced private equity mogul Steven Rattner has gotten his reputation back in the Manhattan lunch circles that matter. This was probably only a matter of time given that it was the Times itself that played a leading role in his rehabilitation. It’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, naturally, who pronounces the cleansing complete, even wondering aloud if Rattner could be a Treasury secretary someday. This about a guy who just two years ago paid $16 million to settle SEC and New York lawsuits against him for taking part in a kickback scheme with public officials...

Carly Fiorina may come from the executive suite, but that hasn’t stopped other executives from slamming her record. The latest critique comes from Steven Rattner, a former Wall Street banker and private equity executive. Rattner, in an opinion piece in the New York Times on Saturday, called Fiorina’s time as the CEO of HP “short and disastrous.” Rattner said HP’s acquisition of Compaq, pushed through by Fiorina, caused an amount of divisiveness at the company that Rattner says he never saw in his 33-year career on Wall Street. He said that while Fiorina did serve during a tough period for...

HER silver tongue honed by decades in corporate marketing, Carly Fiorina has used two debates, and a steely determination on the campaign trail, to climb near the top of the polls for the Republican nomination. But Americans should pause on her biggest professional credential for our highest office: a short, disastrous stint atop one of America’s iconic technology companies, Hewlett-Packard. The clearest measure of her performance — and the report card preferred by Wall Street — is H.P.’s stock price, which dropped by 52 percent during her tenure of almost six years. Yes, Mrs. Fiorina served during the worst fall...

A top Democrat strategist and donor who served as President Obama’s lead auto-industry adviser recently conceded that the rationing of heath services under Obamacare is “inevitable.” Steven Rattner advocated that such rationing should target elderly patients, while stating, “We need death panels.” Rattner serves on the board the New America Foundation, or NAF, a George Soros-funded think tank that was instrumental in supporting Obamacare in 2010. Soros’ son, financier Jonathan Soros, is also a member of the foundation’s board. Rattner was the so-called “car czar,” the lead auto adviser to the Treasury Department under Obama. Last month, Rattner penned an...

We need death panels...unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget. But in the pantheon of toxic issues — the famous “third rails” of American politics — none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical.... Take Britain, which provides universal coverage with spending at proportionately almost half of American levels. Its National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence uses a complex quality-adjusted life year system to put an explicit value (up...

WE need death panels. Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget. But in the pantheon of toxic issues — the famous “third rails” of American politics — none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical. Most notably, President Obama’s estimable Affordable Care Act regrettably includes severe restrictions on any reduction in Medicare services or increase in fees to beneficiaries. In 2009, Sarah Palin’s...