Obama’s new chief of staff opposed health reform and consumer protection agency
William Daley, who was named White House chief of staff on Thursday, has expressed opposition to two of President Barack Obama’s major initiatives, which he will now be required to defend against Republicans seeking to derail them.
Daley, an executive at JPMorgan Chase and former US commerce secretary, last year claimed Obama and the Democratic Congress overreached in pursuit of health reform and wound up pushing the country too far to the left.
“They miscalculated on health care,” Daley told the New York Times. “The election of ’08 sent a message that after 30 years of center-right governing, we had moved to center left — not left.”
Daley also reportedly voiced opposition to the Wall Street reform legislation’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency tasked with clamping down on predatory lending and other risky banking practices.