Oh Oh: Obama Broke Another Rule

President Barack Obama has broke another rule. This time he is getting economic advice from the outside. And his team is not just packed with Wall Street pay-as-you-go economists. His team includes someone from labor? Quelle dommage!

Obama had already tapped Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman and a top Obama adviser, as the leader of the newly created Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Other members of Obama's panel include former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, TIAA-CREF President-CEO Roger Ferguson and Harvard University professor Martin Feldstein, who wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece last year titled "John McCain Has a Tax Plan To Create Jobs."

Obama friend and campaign finance chairwoman Penny Pritzker also is on the board, as is Caterpillar Inc. Chairman-CEO Jim Owens and General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt. Two labor officials _ Anna Burger of Change to Win and Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO _ also were named to the 15-member board designed to offer Obama advice as he seeks a way to rebuild the economy.

The new council is intended to be an economic sounding board for Obama _ an outside-the-Beltway group that will report to the president directly. It will meet regularly with Obama, perhaps once a month. Its mission will include responding to requests from Obama _ such as delving into a particular subject _ without competing with the National Economic Council or day-to-day, decision-making at the White House.

So Obama has a past Fed Chair, a big name academic economist, the CEO of an investment fund that is actually trusted, 2 industrialist CEOs, 2 labor officials, and a philanthropist who has a medical school named after the family. What exactly is his hidden agenda?!

Here is the complete team:

1. William H. Donaldson, former Chairman, SEC
2. Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President & CEO, TIAA-CREF
3. Robert Wolf, Chairman & CEO, UBS Group Americas
4. David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University
5. Mark T. Gallogly, Founder & Managing Partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P.
6. Penny Pritzker, Chairman & Founder, Pritzker Realty Group
7. John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
8. Jim Owens, Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc.
9. Monica C. Lozano, Publisher & Chief Executive Officer, La Opinion
10. Charles E. Phillips, Jr., President, Oracle Corporation
11. Anna Burger, Secretary-Treasurer, SEIU
12. Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
13. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Dean, Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley
14. Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University
15. Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, GE