JONATHAN TASINI
Tasini is executive director of the Labor Research Association and editor of the blog “Working Life.” He just wrote the pieces “Biden and Bankruptcy” and “Is Joe Biden Good For Labor? Mostly, Yes.”

DANNY SCHECHTER
Director of the new film “In Debt We Trust” and author of the new book Plunder, Schechter said today: “The conventional wisdom has it that part of the reason Obama chose Biden is that Biden is a working class hero from Scranton, Pa.

“But there’s a problem with that: One of the biggest afflictions faced by working people, in addition to the threat of foreclosure, is the iron grip of credit card debt, and Joe Biden is known as ‘the Senator from MasterCard/MBNA’ since he is from Delaware, one of the industry’s two low-tax homes, the other being South Dakota. …

“American Banker magazine offered up this scenario last week: Obama picks Biden and then wins the election; Biden leaves the Senate and gives up his seat as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Biden is succeeded as head of Foreign Relations by Chris Dodd of Connecticut, now head of the Senate Banking Committee, who has lately been pushing for new restrictions on the card industry; Dodd in turn gives up his seat running the Banking Committee so he can run Foreign Relations; he is succeeded as Banking Committee chairman by (drumroll, please) Tim Johnson of South Dakota. South Dakota is perhaps the most card industry-friendly state in the country, as lenders have domiciled their banks there in order to operate under its lenient banking laws.”

See the recent piece in American Banker: “Obama Nears VP Pick Rife with Industry Implications.”

Schechter is editor of MediaChannel.org.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167