whyroots

Unlike some other Whyrooters, I am happy with Obama's picks for major economic posts. But I'm not going to name any of them as my favorite Obama cabinet nominee. Instead, I'm going with:

Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy. He is a Nobel Prize winning quantum physicist who, unlike the Bush administration, acknowledges that science actually has the ability to reveal truth, and that good policy requires we respond to those findings. The refusal to acknowledge reality is one of the more consistently baffling elements of the Bush administration, not because I'm shocked now by any of their misbehavior, but because of its dazzling brazenness. After all, it's reality, and readily observable. Chu's appointment also stands in stark contrast to Bush's fox in the henhouse strategy to filling cabinet positions. Spencer Abraham, his first Secretary of Energy, had sponsored a bill to abolish the department. So here's to Steven Chu, a man committed to solving the biggest problems that better energy policy can tackle and with experience in running largescale research programs. Hopefully he will leverage the admittedly meager powers of his office for good ends.

If Chu represents a distinct break from the Bush administration, my least favorite pick promises to continue of some of our worst policies:

Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture. Others have complained about Vilsack's support for ethanol and GMOs. It's neither of these stands that bother me all that much. I still believe there's likely to be some place for ethanol and other biofuels in our country's energy diet, especially cellulosic ethanol. And I like me some GMOs. My issue is agricultural subsidies -- those big, big payments made to farmers to keep them producing food. It's devastating for developing countries' agricultural sectors, and terribly inefficient. Obama has made like he's going to reassess these subsidies for budgetary reasons. Couple of problems with this. One, budgetary considerations are out the windo with the current economic conditions, and farmers will not want to be left out of a stimulus package. Two, Vilsack himself has received subsidies. Oops. Too much of the same -- a secretary with ties to some of the worst policies that remain from our country's past. It damages his credibility as a spokesman, and may stand in the way of much needed reform. Let's hope Obama manages to fight big ag along with saving the economy, stopping global warming, and healing our racial tensions.

-- Nathan Huttner

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